Lost wisdom amid the wonders of Disney

Norman Fox applauds help for the nation's elite but warns of a cost to coaching

WHAT AN optimistic week for Britain's top sportsmen and women. What a gloomy time for today's youngest athletes searching for good advice from proven coaches. On the one hand there was the announcement of sponsored warm weather training at Disney's Wide World of Sport in Florida and, at last, confirmation that the Government will set up regional centres of excellence. On the other, nine national coaches and development officers have been made redundant by the bankrupt British Athletic Federation.

From the balance of evidence of the last few days, sport in general, which the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, says is so important for the confidence of the nation, has seemed to follow professional football in particular by going further down the road of promoting those who have already achieved something without giving much hope to those who have not. They must wonder whether there will ever again be sufficient numbers of coaches at grassroots level to give them the first step up.

Several of the top British athletics coaches and administrators have formed Performance Athlete Services Limited, which is backed by the UK Sports Council and chaired by the unfortunate David Moorcroft who after succeeding Peter Radford as the BAF chief executive was told they were losing pounds 4,000 a week. The problem is that while such established and successful coaches as Malcolm Arnold take up university appointments rather in the style of the diversified American system, the broad spread of quality coaching has been lost. As Fred Woodings, the chairman of the South of England Athletic Association, said: "By sacking so many coaches you lose 40 years of expertise."

At least by going back on their original, patently absurd plan to omit football, cricket and rugby ("sports that can look after themselves") in the overall plan for creating centres of excellence the Government has accepted that the whole point of such places is to raise young competitors in sports to which the majority of people relate. But ironically it was athletics, especially after the "failure" at the last Olympics, that the present Government most wanted to rejuvenate. As with the whole "academy" project, delay is the enemy. A generation of youngsters who should soon be benefiting from John Major's personal interest in the improvement of sports training facilities now seems likely to be left waiting, probably too long even for the Olympics after next.

Abandoning the idea of a single national centre is clearly a step in the right direction. The plan was always flawed, even on the logistics of travel. The building of up to a dozen Lottery-funded satellite centres with a central Institute of Sport (Upper Heyford in Oxfordshire is the most likely venue and has the significant backing of the British Olympic Association) was something that the majority of sports coaches and administrators had been pressing on the Government. However, by dramatically changing the concept of the main centre from something costing around pounds 60m to one probably pounds 20m cheaper, the Secretary of State for Culture, Chris Smith, has been forced to ask the three possible sites (Nottingham, Sheffield and Upper Heyford) to start all over again with their planning for facilities which, by and large, will be for the Olympic sports, plus providing medical and scientific services. The in-fighting between the BOA and the United Kingdom Sports Council over preferred sites will continue.

The Sports Minister, Tony Banks, says his priority is ensuring that "this time we get it right". Yet by again delaying an announcement about the main site and which organisations will have control of the various other centres, the Government has set back the project by probably another six months. It is now two years since John Major first mooted the project with thoughts of having a Centre of Excellence in place in time to help competitors prepare for the Olympics in Sydney in three years' time. No problem for those athletes who have the funds or backing to go off to Florida, but just another frustrating wait in the British winter for the rest.