Sorry to stick with the UK-centric tone of this first column of the year, but I felt I simply had to mention the appointment of Ed Warner as the chairman of UK Athletics. The British press has been full of how Warner, supposedly a keen fun-runner, will get the country’s track and field athletes ready for the 2012 London Olympics.
Now, I have to say as an active ‘fun’ competitor in sport myself, and as someone who actually left the market to study sports science, I have never subscribed to the traditional sports-jock view that the pre-requisite to running a team or a sports admin organisation was previous sporting experience at the highest level. Management skills are, in my view, just as relevant. So it is perhaps correct that the UK press has focused on how Warner, who some would describe as an alchemist – after all, he managed to talk up the value of IFX and sell it to rival City Index, will bring his hard-nosed City reputation to his new job.
One former minion of Warner describes him as: “A nice guy.