Stuart Weir writes about how Birmingham is cementing itself as the most important city in the world of athletics in the UK Athletics firmament. Please read this piece closely. UK Athletics is not demanding that British athletes train in the second city. Stuart Weir makes it clear that, from Stephen Maguire, the option to use Birmingham, with the new Performance Innovation Centre, is there, and options will be made more enthusiastically for athletes and coaches to see the value of the new centre.
Birmingham has done much to impress the casual track fan, elite athlete, and coach. The host of the Commonwealth Games in 2022, where all sessions were sold out, the powerful presence of the Diamond League and Indoor meetings at NAI have all built a culture of enthusiasm for the sport in England’s second city.
Stuart Weir has provided RunBlogRun readers a thoughtful view of the sport across the pond for several years now, from where most of our sport was born. We look for his columns each and every week.
Nicely done, UK Athletics. Thanks to our senior writer, Stuart Weir, for providing us with this story.
UK ATHLETICS AND BIRMINGHAM CITY COUNCIL UNVEIL PERFORMANCE INNOVATION CENTRE AT ALEXANDER STADIUM CAMPUS
It has been a good month and year for Birmingham, which claims to be the UK’s track and field centre. It hosted a successful Commonwealth Games earlier in the year, with 30,000 watching most morning and evening sessions. It has also been named as host of the 2026 European Championships.
UK Athletics (UKA) has confirmed that Birmingham will host a new Performance Innovation Centre in summer 2023 after agreeing on a partnership with the City Council for the facility to be situated on the redeveloped Alexander Stadium campus, helping cement the site’s Commonwealth Games legacy.
Designed for the primary use of UKA World Class Programme (WCP) athletes and coaches, the state-of-the-art facility will enable the world-leading capability to understand track and field performance through enhanced technology and analytics, which are not currently available to athletes in the UK.
Athletes and coaches visiting the centre will be able to deep-dive into their performance through having access to diagnostic capabilities with specialist expertise in an environment designed for problem-solving and collaboration.
Jack Buckner, the UKA CEO, said: “For some time, UKA has aspired…
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