Editor's letter

Mud, guts and glory – but not enough cash

IF you think the British cross-country team should have a bit more lottery funding behind it going into the World Championships in Edinburgh, then blame the Parisian heat wave of 1924. The Olympics of that year featured a cross-country race, but it was such a disaster it led to the discipline being scrapped from future Games.

Only 15 of 38 athletes finished, led by the legendary Paavo Nurmi of Finland, due to
sunstroke, knee-high thistles and breathing problems caused by poisonous fumes from a nearby energy plant. Since then, cross-country has not been run in the Olympics, with financial consequences for modern GB athletes because lottery paymasters are only interested in Olympic events.

So glance through the team for Edinburgh and there are very few lottery-funded athletes. Tom Humphries, for example, this week’s cover star, gets nothing more than free kit from Mizuno and works part-time in a supermarket to make ends meet while he attends further education. Liz Yelling, a stalwart in domestic endurance running in recent years, is not on the World Class Programme – likewise Hayley Yelling, the European champion in 2004.

Indeed, the only senior team member to receive lottery funding is Laura Kenney, the trials winner last weekend and, significantly, the European under-23 5000m champion, although there are a number of juniors, such as Charlotte Purdue, Emily Pidgeon and Ross Murray, who receive lottery support.

Surely this is a huge flaw in the system. No part of the sport can boast such passion, energy and dedication as there exists in cross-country running. There is also a clear link between success on the mud and glory on the track or roads. Just ask Paula Radcliffe or Kenenisa Bekele.

Similarly, it remains a travesty that a sponsor for the UK Cross Challenge has not been found since Reebok withdrew its longstanding support a couple of years ago.

To be fair, UK Athletics will ensure the team in Edinburgh is given superb support. But it is still ironic that athletics in Britain has never been better supported financially and yet cross country has never been treated with more disinterest.

Jason Henderson, Editor

From this week's Athletics Weekly, - available in WH Smith and all good newsagents, or on subscription

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