Brand new athletes taking their first steps onto the Talent Pathway
Last weekend we were delighted to welcome our brand new cohort of athletes on to the Youth Talent Programme (YTP).
This autumn there are 244 athletes in total across all event groups - including para-events - who will take their first step on to the England Athletics Talent Pathway. They will join the 250 athletes who have moved into their second year of the programme.
Across the year, these athletes will attend a selection of training weekends, spread across our four Talent Hubs, based out of Leeds Beckett University, St Mary's University, Loughborough University and the University of Birmingham. Each of these Talent Hubs have state-of-the-art facilities and a network of coaches, physios, psychologists, nutritionists and more, ready to help athletes during their time on the programme. It is thanks to the support of our incredible partners of London Marathon Events, Sport England and TASS that we are able to provide such an outstanding offering to our athletes and their personal coaches.
We caught up with Talent Pathways Manager, Alan Richardson last weekend to learn more about the programme overall, and why it is such a fantastic thing for athletes to be a part of:
With most of the athletes attending our Loughborough launch weekend, there was still some action at our Birmingham Talent Hub who opened their doors to welcome athletes from the West Midlands and South West. Although each Hub does support athletes from across the event groups, there is some event bias, with Birmingham having a strong history of successful endurance runners. National Endurance Manager, Hayley Hemmings, spoke to us about some of the key things the endurance athletes were focusing on this weekend, and what she is especially excited for this year!
Hear from Hayley:
As well as supporting athletes to achieve their goals, we also want to give development opportunities to personal coaches and parents during the two years. Whether this is through anti-doping workshops, guidance on nutrition or giving them the opportunity to network with other coaches and observe the event-specific training sessions themselves. We spoke to Anthony Soalla-Bell, coach at Herne Hill Harriers and Shaftesbury Barnet, to see how valuable he has found the first YTP weekend.
Hear from Anthony:
Learn more about the Talent Pathway
Whether you are an athlete wanting to learn more about each step on the Talent Pathway, or a coach or parent, take a look at our helpful link below.