- Coaches will now get a base of £15,000 a year if their athlete wins a gold medal
- Keely Hogkinson’s coach Trevor Painter is set to see his funding slashed
- Painter would have earned £60,000 before, but will not only get £22,500
Britain’s top athletics coaches have been left reeling after being told their funding will be cut by more than a half despite the success of the Paris Olympics.
Previously, those who coached global medallists in the UK were paid an annual base of £20,000 and received a £20,000 bonus for each athlete they guided to the podium.
However, under new criteria set by UK Athletics, coaches will now get a base of just £15,000 a year if their athlete wins a gold medal, with no bonus.
Those who train athletes to a silver or bronze will receive only £7,500, while the only other coaches who will be paid are those who have multiple relay medallists and they will get £5,000.
Under the new guidelines, Keely Hodgkinson’s coach Trevor Painter – a contender for Coach of the Year at Tuesday’s BBC Sports Personality of the Year – will see his funding slashed by a whopping 62.5 per cent.
Painter would have earned £60,000 under the old criteria – £20,000 base plus £40,000 in bonuses for Hodgkinson’s Olympic 800 metres gold and Georgia Bell’s 1500m bronze – but he will now only get a combined £22,500.
Top UK Athletics coaches like Trevor Painter, left, are set to see their funding slashed
Painter coached Keely Hodgkinson to gold in the women’s 800m at the Olympics in Paris
The move comes with UK Athletics braced to have their overall funding for LA 2028 cut by UK Sport, despite Team GB winning 10 medals in track and field at the Olympics, their best performance at a Games in 40 years.
Athletics received £22.7million for the Paris 2024 cycle, but that is set to be reduced when UK Sport announce their allocations for each sport on Monday, and coaches will be directly hit.
‘Dedication and commitment is all well and good but you can’t live off that,’ one top British coach told Mail Sport.
‘It is crazy when the sport relies on coaches being professional, like their athletes, but all they get is a “contribution”. It doesn’t promote anyone staying to coach in the UK if this is all you can be paid.’
UKA recorded a loss of £1.2m in the last financial year, having also posted a £3.7m loss in the previous 12 months.
UKA declined to comment.
