News

08/11/2022 00:00, In Blog / Commonwealth Games /

We are delighted to announce the process and changes for the next four year cycle (2022 – 2026) for Welsh Athletics Performance Programmes.

Drivers for Change

Global athletic performance standards are continually progressing, whilst Olympic and World championships qualification have significantly moved forward in recent years. In a bid to:

• Drive up domestic standards
• Close the performance gap to the rest of the world
• Increase the number of athletes making GB Teams
• Strengthen the performance profile of Commonwealth Games potential athletes to be able to affect an increased quota of Team Wales Athletics allocated places  

Entry onto Welsh Athletics Performance Programmes for 2022 – 2026 are now aligned to reaching a minimum requirement of being within a certain % of European Championship (Senior/U23/U20/U18) standards.

This further supports our Welsh Athletics strategic objective of:

“Increasing the number of top 6 performances at the Commonwealth Games with 75% of athletes achieving personal best performances”.

In addition, Sport Wales has changed its strategic remit, and governing bodies in Wales are now responsible for providing most of the service provision for athletes across all sports. The cost for all support services is now incurred by the governing bodies which again has forced sports to look at the scale of investment that can be provided at different levels across all programmes.

Chris Jones, National Coach at Welsh Athletics explains further below.

Programme Entry Criteria - Welsh Athletics Performance Programme

Moving forward, access to programmes will no longer be aligned to athletes achieving a performance standard alone, instead an athlete profile will be weighted against a % scoring model.

For the Welsh Athletics Performance Programme this considers whether an athlete:

• Has the ability of consistently making World & European GB Championships teams. Athletes that are targeting 2024 European championships and future World Championships. 25%
• Has a strong performance profile, achieving multiple event discipline consideration standards, aligned to the Performance Consideration (Tolerance) Tables. 35%
• Athletes will have agreed performance/process goals aligned to their athlete improvement plan with evidence-based information supporting progression of key performance markers. 30%
• Do the athlete and coach engage with support from Welsh Athletics and key partners that will add value to their overall performance. 10%

Programme Entry Criteria - Welsh Athletics Development Performance Programme

For the Welsh Athletics Development Performance Programme the athlete profile considers:

• Is the athlete within % of the European performance standard and consistently achieving the required Development Programme standard. They should be working towards qualifying for a European Championship and top 6 performance at the 2026 commonwealth games. 30%
• Is there clear evidence to show that the individual athletes performance profile is on an upward trend, based on the event discipline that is aligned to the athlete’s individual investment plan. 20%
• Do athletes have an agreed performance/process goals aligned to their athlete improvement plan with evidence-based information supporting progression of key performance markers. 35%
• Is the coach engaging with support from Welsh Athletics and key partners that will add value to their overall performance environment. 15%

Event Group Performance Consideration tables can be viewed here along with an overview of the Welsh Athletics Support Programmes for 2022 – 2026 which can be accessed here.

Please be aware performance consideration standards may be subject to change and will be aligned to UKA European Championship qualification standards once released.

Selection will take place in the coming weeks and athletes will be informed directly. Following this there will be an announcment on our website and social media channels.