This article was written by a former member of a World Class Start program
Recently, the World Class Start Programme has been dispersed and the centre’s in Reading, Peterborough, Twickenham, and Kent have closed down. Following a reduction in the funding that British Rowing received after Team GB’s Performance at Tokyo, British Rowing have had no other choice but to change the workings of ‘Start’ completely. This has left many athletes temporarily without a coach and wanting answers for why their particular centre had to close down. It has been interesting to explore how British Rowing organised this immediate and drastic shift and what the athlete’s next steps will be moving forward.
Following the GB Teams performance at Tokyo, British Rowing sought to find ways of ensuring they could build a strong team moving forward. A vital part of this process is talent spotting athletes and nurturing their potential in the sport to become the next Olympic Champions. This stood to be the primary aim of World Class Start. Tremendously, since its inauguration in 2001, it has produced World and Olympic medals from individuals including Helen Glover, Alex Gregory, Moe Sbihi and Heather Stanning.
In recent years, the Start coaches have tested and recruited many athletes from around the country and adopted them onto this programme, individually guiding them on their podium journey. For these athletes, it has become the foundation of their rowing career and has shaped their lives significantly due to the amount of dedication, hard work, and commitment they have put into the programme. Therefore, the closure of these programmes has been a bitter pill to swallow for the athletes who no longer have a full-time coach to ‘steer them’ in the right direction.
British Rowing’s priority is ‘learning from the past reshaping for the future’, to best prepare and construct a GB Team that will perform exceedingly at both LA 2028 and Brisbane 2032. As part of this re-shape the new Start Centres have been renamed ‘GB Performance Develop Academies’ in the hope of recruiting more athletes from wider demographic populations, ensuring proactivity of athletes on to the Olympic team to develop an integrated pathway under a single strategy and structure. However, there is concern amongst athletes and parents that these changes have not been handled as smoothly as possible and that to some extent, the concerns of incumbents have not always been reflected in decision-making.
The placement of these new academies also sparks some questions and concerns, not least because the decision was made based on the 2011 demographic statistics concerning income, culture, and age. Clearly, this data could have changed in the past 12 years. It is proposed that “the new Development Academies should be more widespread and encompass a representation of the South.” The funding providers would like to place academies in more varied places to achieve diversity and inclusivity but most of them are in isolated locations which makes it very difficult for athletes to travel to, so the placement of the academies has not hit this checkpoint.
The transformation of the Start Programme was also made immediately, which has suddenly removed the support system for athletes. The news was originally handled via an online call with “no information regarding what it meant for the athletes” according to one affected Start member; many athletes suggested that they would have preferred the news to be dealt in person which would be a more sincere approach. It is important to note that in the proceeding weeks following the call the concurrent head of Start organised a 1 on 1 call with each of the athletes from the removed start centres. This admittedly helped to clear up some misinformation and put at rough plan in place going forward.
Members responded initially to the situation with disappointment, with one member stating that they felt “abandoned by the programme” and let down by senior executives at British Rowing. Some athletes have stopped rowing altogether as it is no longer feasible without adult supervision to train at their club. Subsequently, the talent pool scouted by coaches has been wasted and potential champions have been left without guidance or the ability to train.
For the younger athletes, a high level in this sport cannot be achieved without a family who are fully committed in helping the athletes to achieve their aspirations. Therefore, this alteration will have an impact on parents/carers of rowers. Instinctively, parents will try to find a way to make sure their son/daughter gets to training at any place at any time but for this to be made possible they will have to shape their busy schedules around the athletes moving forward.
In facilitating this modification, some of the hosting clubs were able to provide instant support. This has been done by allocating the athletes to a group within the club where some have even “stayed longer to supervise” the athletes that are too young to train alone according to one member. On the other hand, it has been significantly disappointing for others where a divide between the Start Programme and club attendees has not been restored.
Moving forward, the athletes have had to consider how the centre closures would affect their future performances and careers in rowing. The athletes will remain in communication with the coaches at their local clubs and former centre clubs to maintain training despite the differences in timings, daily arrangements, and group arrangements. For the athletes, this is best viewed as a “bump in the road” and one they will surely rise to in classically determined fashion.
The majority of these athletes dream is to compete at an elite level and the focus remains firmly on that.
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