Serious concern is growing for Leon Baptiste, the British athletics coach and former Commonwealth 200m champion, who has not been heard from since travelling to Morocco around two months ago.
Baptiste, 41, will be a familiar name and face to longtime AW readers. As a sprinter he was a regular fixture in these pages, appearing on the cover of the magazine during a career that took in a European junior title and Commonwealth gold, and he has remained a well-known figure in British athletics circles since moving into coaching.
According to reports, Baptiste is believed to have travelled to Morocco for a weekend away with close friends, possibly a stag do or golf trip, but has not been in contact with either his athletes or UK Athletics – who employ him as a Loughborough-based consultant – in the two months since. Messages to his phone have gone unanswered.
UK Athletics has declined to comment publicly, citing confidentiality, while the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has said it stands ready to support any British national abroad without confirming details of the case. One former team-mate, speaking to the Guardian, described Baptiste as "a very calm and sensible chap" and said the situation was "very worrying."
Among the athletes Baptiste coaches is Charlie Dobson, the European 4x400m medallist, who has been supported through recent weeks by performance staff led by former European champion Martyn Rooney. Dobson, who described it as an "interesting eight weeks" without his coach, has struggled for form and fitness in Baptiste's absence, failing to advance beyond the 400m semi-finals at this week's European Championships in Birmingham.
Baptiste's own competitive career was one that regularly made headlines. Born in Enfield in 1985, he initially set his sights on football before a serious knee ligament injury at 14 redirected him towards athletics. He won the 100m title at the European Junior Championships in Finland in 2003 at just 18, anchoring the 4x100m team to a second gold in the same competition, and was named the British Athletics Writers' Association's junior athlete of the year as a result – all of which were covered extensively in AW.
His senior breakthrough came later than expected. After lowering his 100m best to 10.26 seconds in Geneva in 2008, he switched his focus increasingly to the 200m and the move paid off at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, where he won gold in a personal best of 20.45 – England's first Commonwealth sprint title in 12 years – ahead of team-mate Marlon Devonish and Welshman Christian Malcolm. He added a second gold in the same championships as part of England's victorious 4x100m team.
That success came after a difficult year in which Baptiste had missed out on selection for the 2010 European Championships and it proved to be the peak of his competitive career. A knee problem that required surgery cost him a place at the London 2012 Olympics and he never fully returned to his best form. He announced his retirement from competition in 2014, aged 28, choosing to focus on coaching rather than attempt to qualify for that year's Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
Since then, Baptiste has built a respected reputation on the coaching side of the sport, helping guide Dobson to podium finishes at the European Championships in Rome two years ago as well as Olympic and World Championship relay bronze medals. His sudden and unexplained absence from Birmingham this week, at a championships his own athlete was competing in, has only heightened concern among those who know him.
AW will continue to follow this story and hopes for news of his safe return soon.
