UKA CEO says the timing was debatable but she certainly does not regret starting the cross-country consultation earlier this year

After UK Athletics received a whopping 10,000 replies to their cross country gender equality consultation, the governing body’s chief executive Jo Coates slightly regrets the timing of the survey but she welcomes the reaction it received.

“I think if I had my time again, would I have done it at exactly that moment?” she told AW. “With hindsight, probably not with everything else that was going on.”

She adds: “I don't think anybody thought it would have the response. But it's a great thing for the sport, because what it did was it highlighted something, we got more than 10,000 replies and we’ve had to delay the feedback because of the volume of replies.

“What it will do now is it will actually feed into the whole cross country debate. And how do we take something that is still fantastic, but make it even better?

“It highlighted as well the extent to how much people have a passion for it. Therefore it must be a massive growth area for us as a sport.

“So this is how I would like to work across the entire sport and build the right plan because if you go out and ask the questions, you get this massive information back, which you then can build your plan on.”

The survey was based around gender equality and racing distances for men and women but Coates says the reaction has been more comprehensive. “We've got so much more just than the just than the thoughts around equity. You know other people have basically written across country plan for us.

“So would I have done it at that time, probably not. Do I regret doing it? Absolutely not. Because it proves that we have a passionate following for the sport that when we ask them what their feeling is, they're going to give us a really good answer.”

READ MORE: Thousands respond to cross-country gender equality survey

Coates, who has been in charge at UKA for just over a year, says this kind of consultation is something she wants to drive through other areas of athletics.

“It’s the way you adapt and change your sport. Because you're asking the people who do the sport, you're asking your customers, what do you want us to deliver for you? And that's the only way we'll grow a sport.

“We can't do it by you're sitting here thinking we know all the answers. So I'm really pleased. And look, I'm a great believer in you opening up a debate. And I know sometimes you will get some hostile responses, or you'll get people who don't understand why we're doing it. But I hope now this proves that if we ask a question, we honestly do want open honest responses back to us.

“And we'll look at those and then we'll act on what the majority of the responses say. I hope this has proven that this sport can trust us to do things like that. And so, no, I don't regret it at all. I think cross country will be the better for it.”

But was some of the criticism painful? “It can be,” she says. “But I have to say if you're going to be a CEO of an NGB, you need very broad shoulders. You cannot go into this job and be easily offended.

“I always say it's not like running a normal business. This is what people do outside of their work life. This is their passion, it's their thing that drives them outside of their work life. And therefore they feel very differently about it. And as a CEO of an NGB, you have to accept that.

“You have to accept the criticism. And sometimes it can be quite painful, but if it hurts you shouldn't be doing this job.

“Sometimes it crosses a line and that's completely unacceptable. But if you want people to constantly agree with you and think you're brilliant, don't be a CEO of an NGB.”

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