One of essentially the most well-liked and revered coaches in pole vaulting is Scott Simpson. To admire the camaraderie amongst vault coaches, one should sit at a contest with the vault crowd and observe the coaches working with athletes, their very own and ones in want of help at monitor meets. I did this in 2019 on the Madrid Indoor, and I additionally noticed at main conferences, Live and distant.
I’ve to confess that we at RunBlogRun are fairly involved about our mates throughout the pond. UK Athletics is in disaster, not simply monetary, however, seemingly, existential as nicely. One of the tales of this century has been the rebirth of British Athletics, and the 2023 World Champs, with ten medals, is a large testomony to that success. But the federation appears to be imploding, and that isn’t good for the game.
Scott Simpson stunned many along with his latest departure from UK Athletics. I requested Stuart Weir, who is aware of Scott Simpson from many discussions at numerous conferences over time, to remark. This is what Stuart despatched:
Hot on the heels of the shock departure of Stephen Maguire from his put up of technical director at UK Athletics comes the report that Scott Simpson, head of discipline occasions on the federation has left his put up simply over a 12 months after being appointed. In Budapest, the GB workforce carried out magnificently, successful 10 medals – in comparison with Germany’s nil and France’s one – however now the wheels appear to be coming off as arguably the 2 folks most accountable for that medal haul have left their posts.
Before being promoted to the function of head of discipline occasions, Simpson had been accountable for the event of the pole vault, at which he had himself been a global athlete. He was the long-time coach of Holly Bradshaw who took a bronze medal on the Tokyo Olympics. It was introduced final month that Holly had break up amicably from Scott as she was relocating to the north of England. Perhaps there was extra to it.
A number of years in the past, Simpson facilitated a webinar with Aikatarina Stefanidi, Katie Nageotte, and Holly Bradshaw, which was featured on RunBlogRun. It drew over 100,000 downloads of every piece and video. Here are the hyperlinks to the 4 components;