A group of 65 athletes have been selected for membership to join the UK Athletics Olympic World Class Programme* (WCP) for 2024/25. The WCP is split into several levels reflecting the actual and the future performance potential of athletes: Podium, Podium Potential, Relay and Confirmation. The full list of athletes is listed below. The number 65 compares with 67 in 2023-24. Last year 17 were in the top category of “Podium” with the number increasing to 21 in the new list. This year there are only 11 “Podium potential” as against 19 last year. In the third category “Olympic confirmation” there were 13 last year and 10 for 2024-25. Britain gained medals in all five relays in Paris and the number of athletes funded for relay for the coming year is 23 compared to 18 previously.
Four athletes who were funded last year have now retired Holly Bradshaw, Andrew Pozzi, Jessie Knight and Jodie Williams. In addition, European Championship medallist in the steeplechase, Lizzie Bird is pursuing a career as a lawyer and is not seeking funding as a full-time athlete.
2023-24 funded athletes who were not on this year’s roster include Eilish McColgan, Scott Lincoln, Callum Wilkinson, Lawrence Okoye, Nick Percy and Elliot Giles.
New additions to the list of funded athletes include:
Georgia Bell – who one year ago was working full-time in an office and running in the evenings. She is now a 1500m Olympic medallist.
Jacob Fincham-Dukes – fifth in the Olympic long-jump has been added for the first time.
Sam Reardon – as featured recently at https://www.runblogrun.com/2024/09/the-accidental-medalist-sam-reardon.html for winning two Olympic medals after not originally being selected for the games, is one of the least surprising additions.
Other additions to the relay squad include Lina Nielson, (a medalist in Paris who continues to battle illness), Amy Hunt and Louie Hinchcliffe (both Paris medallists) and Desiree Henry (back in squad after years battling injury).
Phoebe Gill, the 17 year-old who reached the Olympic 800m semi-final and Romell Glave, bronze medallist in the 100m at the 2024 Europeans are also added.
The list released by UK Athletics includes the name of each athlete’s coach, from…
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