Winners and losers in chase for UK funding

Mukhtar Mohammed and Richard Buck were among the scores of track and field stars holding out for good news yesterday as UK Athletics announced which athletes will be supported financially as part of their world class performance programme for 2014.

Mohammed, 22, a Somali-born 800m runner from Sheffield, was retained on the governing body’s podium potential list to continue developing towards the Olympics in Tokyo in 2020.

It means he can continue his journey to next year’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow by going on a four-week British training camp to Kenya later this month.

He also hopes to return there in January to work alongside double Olympic champion Mo Farah.

Twenty-seven-year-old York sprinter Buck, on the other hand, has lost funding for the second time in three years and will have to maintain a part-time job to pay the rent while he fits his training schedule around this and his studies at Loughborough University.

Funding for athletes on the podium programme equates to an average of £20,000 for the year and comes in addition to non-financial help like access to coaches, facilities, medical staff and training camps.

Sheffield’s Olympic champion Jessica Ennis-Hill is one of 22 athletes set to receive the full backing over the next year, as is Middlesbrough long jumper Chris Tomlinson, 32, despite missing out on selected for the summer’s world championships, and Leeds-based Laura Weightman.

Hull’s Annabelle Lewis, who won a bronze in the 4x100m relay in Moscow, is part of the relay podium programme while double gold medallist Hannah Cockroft, of Halifax, and shot-putter Rob Womack, from Wakefield, make the fully-funded Paralympic grade.

Lewis, 24, said: “If somebody had have told me I’d be a world bronze medallist and fully-funded a year ago I would never have believed them. It inspires me to work even harder.

“I owe my dad a lot for supporting me this past year after I quit my job to pursue my dream.”

Barnsley pole vaulter Luke Cutts and Sheffield-based long jumper Jazmin Sawyers – who is part of Toni Minichiello’s stable of athletes – join Mohammed on the podium potential list.

“I didn’t have a very good outdoor season this year and I thought they’d drop me,” said Mohammed, who heads out to Kenya next week.

“My indoor season went really well but the biggest thing is qualifying for the outdoor competitions. I missed out on London last year and Moscow this summer, so I thought my time was up.

“There’s a lot of promising athletes out there and it’s all about whether they can deliver in the years leading up to Tokyo.

“So the fact that they are believing in me makes me really happy. It’s my job now to justify that.”

At 22, Mohammed still has time on his side, given that Farah is 30 and only now reaching his peak.

To fully justify the faith being placed in his potential, though, Mohammed knows he has to start delivering in the big outdoor meetings in 2014, notably the European Championships in Zurich and the Commonwealth Games.

“I feel as though I am ready to be a success, I’ve just got to prove it,” said Mohammed, who because of the closure of Don Valley Stadium has had to relocate to Loughborough to fulfil his training needs.

“I will do the indoor season but I have to prioritise the outdoors, because that’s what the funding is all about.”

On the other side of the fence, experienced sprinter Buck has been left to plough his own furrow towards next year’s big events, just a year after forcing his way back onto the podium programme.

“I’ve been around long enough to understand how these things work,” said Buck, who stacked shelves in a supermarket in the build-up to London 2012 to help fund his own training and will now run a service as an online coaching consultant.

“You always hold out a bit of hope, but the second I didn’t make Moscow – which was really unfortunate – I kind of realised that it would be a long shot from there. It’s better to be on programme, but by no means is this the end for me. Plenty of athletes can still make the grade.

“Off the back of my one year off I came back and had my best year in terms of times.

“There’s a degree of accountability that you place on yourself when you’re off the programme, every decision you make is yours to make.

“You’re not trying to toe an 
official line, you don’t compromise training for organised camps or for anything else.

“It does make things more difficult because you’re competing against athletes who have the medical backing and financial backing.

“There will be some sessions I have to miss because of work. It makes paying the rent more important than the actual sessions, so it’s not ideal. But I’m definitely fired up to reach the Commonwealth Games.”

World championship medallists Lisa Dobriskey, Jenny Meadows, Andy Turner and Phillips Idowu – the latter because he is taking time out from competing – have all lost funding.

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