Team GB's new man Peter Eriksson and the key issues he'll face

 
30 October 2012

Peter Eriksson, UK Athletics' Paralympic head coach was today appointed as their Olympic coaching chief, succeeding the outgoing Charles van Commenee.

Here Press Association Sport's Guy Aspin looks at five key issues he will have to deal with in his new role.

PHILLIPS IDOWU

Neither Idowu nor Charles van Commenee even attempted to disguise their mutual dislike, with their long-running feud dominating the build-up to the London Olympics. One of Eriksson's first tasks will be to bring the enigmatic Londoner in from the cold and rebuild his relationship with UKA. The fact they are both fans of Twitter - Van Commenee described it as for "clowns and attention-seekers" and it was the source of his falling out with Idowu - is a good start and Idowu backed the Swede's appointment on the social networking site today.

SOLVING SPRINT RELAY PROBLEMS

The men's and women's 4x100 metres relay teams require huge work. The women did not even qualify a quartet for the London Olympics, while the men's four were disqualified at the Games for a now customary baton fumble. The men's team were also disqualified at the previous Games, the last World Championships and the last two European Championships. Steve Peters, the renowned sports psychiatrist who has joined UKA, believes he can have a positive impact on that appalling record, but it will be a far from simple task.

SUCCEEDING VAN COMMENEE

Despite failing to meet his own eight-medal target at the London Games, Van Commenee's stint in charge of British athletics was still an undoubted success.

The Dutchman was virtually the only man in the country unhappy with a haul of six medals, including a magnificent four golds, from the Olympics and he will be a tough act to follow. Eriksson's style is different, not as confrontational as the notoriously hard-line approach of his predecessor, but his record as Paralympic head coach shows he has similarly high standards.

OLYMPIC HANGOVER

Eriksson may be called on to boost the motivation of athletes who spent their career building up to the London Olympics and then achieved their career goals, although it is hard to imagine the likes of Mo Farah and Jessica Ennis lacking drive. Harder, perhaps, could be the task of inspiring those athletes who failed to live up to expectations in Stratford, or even missed out on a place in the team altogether, with four years to wait for another chance.

GAINING RESPECT OF ATHLETES

Anyone questioning whether Eriksson, as a coach of Paralympic athletes, is deserving of the top job at UKA need only look at his record. He has coached athletes to well over 100 Paralympic medals during a 30-year career and took Great Britain's Paralympians from 18th on the medal table in 2008 in Beijing to third in 2012, converting two golds into 11. Any athlete struggling to respect a CV of that calibre would be just about impossible to satisfy.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in