With the recent European Athletics Indoors Championships hosted in Belgrade last week now over, the FCN’s attention turns to the lack of female coaches present at the games. Whilst as always, the number of female athletes matching the male competitors is even, the lack of women as team managers and coaches were very apparent.
From a GB point of view, a team of 31 athletes, only 4 of them were coached by women, those being Eilish McColgan (Liz McColgan), Philippa Lowe (Debbie Keenlyside), Morgan Lake (Kelly Sotherton) and Jazmin Sawyers (Kelly Southerton), with only Kelly present at the games in an official coaching capacity. These numbers are much less at some of the smaller federation levels.
On her return from Belgrade fellow Olympic medalist turned respected broadcaster Katharine Merry wanted to catch up with Kelly to ask her about the transition of moving from competitor to coach and the difficulties she has faced proving herself as a world class coach.
To listen to the interview CLICK HERE or visit: http://www.katharinemerry.com/blog/
