Meet the coach: Ashley Bryant

Former decathlete talks about the status of combined events in the UK, how to go about helping athletes learn a multitude of skills and the importance of mentors

A talented decathlete, Ashley Bryant demonstrated leadership qualities from an early age and captained the Great Britain and Northern Ireland team at the 2010 World Junior Championships in Canada, writes Katy Barden.

Having retired from competition in 2020, the 34-year-old – who heads up the jumps and combined events programme at Welsh Athletics – is now coach to a group of athletes including Welsh heptathlon record-holder Abi Pawlett and European U18 heptathlon silver medallist Thea Brown (who he is coaching remotely until she moves to Loughborough in September). 

The 2014 Commonwealth Games silver medallist is one of only nine British athletes to have achieved a points score in excess of 8000. He is currently ranked fourth on the British all-time list for decathlon with a best of 8163.

How did you get into coaching?

I always knew I was going to coach. I didn’t want to coach while I was still an athlete because I knew how demanding it would be. Maybe it’s my personality or elite sport in general, but when I do something I either want to be all in or not at all. 

When the Olympic Games in Tokyo was postponed due to the Covid pandemic I had to ask myself: “Do I do another year or not?”. At that point I preferred helping Millie* than training myself, so I decided to stop. We had the Olympics and a home Commonwealth Games [Birmingham 2022] which would have been cool to stick around for, but it just felt like the right time, so I made the move.  

The first athlete I was asked to coach…I actually said “no” to British Athletics because it was an important time in their career, and while I hope I can go on to be a really good coach one day, I was under no illusions when I first started how hard it is and I was unsure if I was the right person for them at that time. I talked to my old coaches and they convinced me to change my mind, and I’m glad I did. 

I’ve been very lucky so far to be in the right place at the right time and I’ve coached some talented athletes already, more on the women’s side rather than the decathlon at the minute, but I think that’s representative of where the event is generally right now.

*Ashley is married to Melissa Courtney-Bryant, multiple Welsh record holder and European indoor 3000m silver medallist.