Christian Malcolm: Former British Olympic sprinter named UK Athletics head coach
- Published
Christian Malcolm won junior world championship titles at 100m and 200m
Former British Olympic sprinter Christian Malcolm has been named the new head coach of UK Athletics.
The 41-year-old Welshman is currently head of performance at Australia Athletics and will take up his new position later this year.
Last month UKA appointed Sara Symington as its new performance director.
"Words can't describe how excited I am," said Malcolm, who competed at four Olympics and is an ex-world, European and Commonwealth Games medallist.
"As an athlete I knew I wanted to give back to the sport when I finished competing.
"In all my coaching and advisory roles so far, I have wanted to help athletes avoid the errors I made and support them and their coaches to get the best out of themselves."
Malcolm is understood to have been chosen ahead of Stephen Maguire and Peter Eriksson, and will have less than a year to prepare for the postponed Tokyo Olympics.
Since retiring as an athlete in 2014, Malcolm has fulfilled coaching roles with the successful British relay squads, as well as working with the UK Paralympic team and Disability Wales.
He won the UK Sports Awards HP Coach of the Year and BBC Wales Coach of the Year in 2017 and worked as a speed coach for the England cricket team and Wales rugby team.
He moved to Australia last year with the aim to make Australian athletes more competitive at elite level.
