News
Chris Jones appointed as Endurance Strategy Manager at UKA
14/10/2022 00:00, In
Welsh Athletics National Coach Chris Jones will take up a new role at UK Athletics as Endurance Strategy Manager.
Chris was appointed as National Coach in late 2018 and has led the implementation of the performance development strategy at Welsh Athletics, this has seen the establishment of a Regional and National Development programme for each event group. Chris was also the team lead at the recent Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games where he played a pivotal role in successfully leading the team to deliver 3 medals and numerous personal bests.
Over the past 18 Months, Chris had been seconded into UK Athletics to help establish the endurance strategy – and his impending role at UK Athletics will enable him to continue to implement the strategy across the UK. The new three day a week role with UK Athletics will commence at the start of November.
UKA Technical Director Stephen Maguire said:
“We are pleased to confirm Chris Jones to this important endurance role. This role is essential for joining together all the pathways and disciplines within this event group.
His responsibilities will include supporting our many off-track disciplines and athletes which span much wider than the World Class Programme ensuring a proper cohesive approach across the UK.”
The move comes at a time of review and refinement for Welsh Athletics Performance team. A new leadership structure will be put in place, with the creation of a Head of Performance role that will lead the department throughout the next four-year cycle. Welsh Athletics hopes to begin the recruitment for this role over the next week.
To ensure continuity of leadership and to guarantee that our athletes retain the right level of support, Welsh Athletics will retain the services of Chris Jones in a new role of National Endurance Performance Coordinator two days a week. The new role will work closely with National Talent Development Coordinator for Endurance, Steve Mitchell and will continue to provide support and mentorship to a number of Welsh endurance coaches, as well as supporting our performance endurance athletes with their training and racing requirements going forward.
CEO of Welsh Athletics James Williams commented:
“This is a wonderful opportunity for Chris to help drive the endurance strategy across the UK. I have no doubt his knowledge of the programmes in the respective Home Countries will help in ensuring an aligned pathway across the UK.
From a personal perspective, I have thoroughly enjoyed working alongside Chris and he has helped establish the foundations of a successful and sustainable performance programme. It is important that we continuously strive for improvements in our system, and I believe the change in structure will enable us to further embed and develop our programmes and in turn increase the talent pool across Wales.
The fact that we have managed to retain some of Chris’ time will make sure that we can continue to benefit from his experience and ensure that we have continuity in service whilst we recruit the next Head of Performance."
Welsh Athletics will publish a further announcement next week regarding the new Head of Performance role.