History

The Lottery-funded programme was approved in early 1998, and in the summer of that year we appointed Göran Andersson as our Performance Director . Funding was then approved to support a Performance group in spring 1999 and in 2000 funding for Potential and Start groups was introduced. This is called the World Class Performance Programme (WCPP), and this changed the nature of training and support dramatically for the squad in the UK .

For the first time, athletes had paid experts to help them improve and time to train without the constraints of working full-time (up to 2002 when the Athlete Personal Assistance ceased) or seeking sponsorship. Further funding was provided for equipment, talent identification programmes, support staff and funding to cover training and competition expenses.

The aim of the WCPP is to produce medallists at the annual Senior World Championships.

Performances began to improve, Yvette Baker became the first GB World Champion (middle distance) at the 1999 World Champs held in Scotland and added the elusive gold to her collection of two silver and one bronze World Championships medals. The following year, at the 2000 World Cup series, the British Team won one gold, four silver and three bronze medals with Heather Monro coming 3rd overall in the series. The then Minister of Sport, Kate Hoey wrote to congratulate the GB team.

Since then, we have won many more medals, with the highlight being in 2003 when Jamie Stevenson became a World Champion (sprint distance) and the men won a bronze in the relay. In 2004 Alison O’Neil won a bronze medal in the Junior World Champs and the following year in 2005 Heather Monro won a bronze medal at the World Champs and the World Games. During the 2005 World Cup series, Matt Crane won a silver medal and Helen Winskill won bronze. In 2006 Helen Bridle won an individual silver and gold in the relay at the World University Champs and in the same year Jamie Stevenson collected his third World Champs medal (middle distance) this time a bronze and he also won a silver at the Europeans.

World Champs Results

A spreadsheet containing all the results from past World Champs can be found here.