British Athletics’ new head coach tells Jason Henderson that athletes and coaches need to get creative during this coronavirus period

Christian Malcolm says athletes and coaches in clubs around the country who are struggling during the pandemic should try to “get creative” with their training and remind themselves that a return to normal training and competition is surely not far away.

Malcolm speaks about his new role as head coach of the British Athletics Olympic programme in the January issue of AW magazine, which is out early in the new year, but on the topic of tackling training this winter at grassroots level, he said: “I really have got sympathy for all athletes of all ages.

“I’m working with elite level now but I have my little cousins who compete at grassroots level and my daughter is looking to get into athletics. It’s really hard.

“I know athletes at my local track who are trying to find ways to train and coach and it’s been really difficult. I think we just need to be creative in the way we do things.

“Some kids have tried to have virtual races when their competitions have been cancelled. I think those are the kinds of things we need to do together as a sport. It’s easier said than done, though. We have to be able to come together and be creative and realise we’re not going to be in this (pandemic) for much longer.”

British Athletics' new Olympic head coach Christian Malcolm's message to athletes struggling to train and compete in the pandemic.

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Malcolm, 41, draws on his own experiences from the past and says his first main coach, Jock Anderson, would probably have had him doing handicap races or time trials over various distances if they were faced with a similar scenario.

“I remember an indoor season where we couldn’t get indoors to train or race due to snow and bad weather. We couldn’t get up to Birmingham and it snowed in Newport (his home track) and we had to clear two lanes of the track to run on it and Jock had myself and Doug Turner do a flat out 200m in the freezing cold.

“We hand timed about 20.3 and 20.5 between us. We had a couple of those to try to mimic (real races) and we were better equipped when we did eventually race indoors and I remember we ran about 20.5 indoors which were PBs for us at the time.”

He adds: “I know it can be challenging but I think you emerge from situations like this stronger than before.”

Lead photo by Mark Shearman

» See the January issue of AW magazine for an in-depth interview with Christian Malcolm

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