Tom Bosworth's morale-boost for GB athletes as governing body breaks even after turbulent time

On the day that UK Athletics revealed it had broken even for the first time in eight years, former Commonwealth Games medal-winning race walker Bosworth says things are also looking up on the track.

There was much handwringing about the British performance in Tokyo, with only five podium finishes and zero gold medals resulting in a 21st-place finish on the medals table. Injuries to a number of strong medal hopes in Japan had already altered expectations, but no relay podiums one year after Team GB claimed medals in all five at the Paris Olympics was widely criticised.

Great Britain did enjoy some memorable moments in Tokyo: Katarina Johnson-Thompson split heptathlon bronze, silver medallists Jake Wightman (1500m), Amy Hunt (200m) and Hunter Bell (800m) all wrote inspiring next chapters in their comeback stories, while Keely Hodgkinson’s bronze came after a year-long injury lay-off post Olympic gold.

And it is those that Bosworth chose to focus on as he returned to Yorkshire last week to be one of 37 inductees into Leeds Beckett University’s Sport Hall of Fame.

“We’re a small island that’s delivered medal after medal and we still had five individual medals, whereas in the past you look at some championships we were relying on relay medals,” he said.

“If the relay squads had performed as expected we could have been at nine, 10 medals. So I think it’s been spun really poorly.

“Ok, we didn’t get a gold but we had plenty who could have done. That’s the world championships for you, everything has got to come good on the day, only one person can win that gold medal.

“When we have two women winning silver and bronze in the 800m, it’s very easy to spin it as ‘we didn’t get a gold’, but you should look at it that other way, that it’s a really exciting place to be.

“Looking ahead to LA it’s a big unknown where those medals could come from.

“People come out of the woodwork. Molly Caudery rolled her ankle in the warm-up, she was a medal contender. Josh Kerr got an injury.

“There were so many ifs, buts and maybes, but that’s just sport, we’ve been spoiled in recent times.

“There are so many positive stories - our depth in middle distance, our depth in female sprinting for instance. I don’t know where the medals are going to come from, but they’re going to come.”

UK Athletics getting back on an even keel will only help that. The governing body on Tuesday reported a surplus for the year ending 31 March 2025 — the organisation’s first in several years. The result follows a period of significant change for UKA, including tighter cost controls, internal restructuring and a sharper focus on core programmes.

UKA chair Ian Beattie said: “It’s an important moment for UK Athletics and a real sign that the steps we have taken over the past two years are working. But I don’t underestimate how difficult it has been to get back to this position. It has taken hard decisions, careful management and the commitment of a great many people.”

As for Bosworth, the 35-year-old from Sevenoaks has a number of strings to his bow post-retirement, with a passion project of his being going into clubs trying to get athletes into race walking.

“Just a month ago I was holding an event here at Leeds Beckett, getting kids involved in race walking, and that’s 16 years on from when I first came here, so that was special for me,” said Bosworth, who revealed being part of the initial wave of Hall of Fame inductees left him ‘truly honoured’.

“I think Covid had an impact on our youngsters coming through and that conveyor belt of talent has dropped off. I’m not going to accept that, I want to get us back there.”