Will we really miss Van Commenee?

This week, UK Athletics head coach Charles Van Commenee resigned from his post after Team GB only winning 6 of the 8 targeted medals in athletics at the 2012 Olympics. However, I would like to question what he has done as head coach.

Let's not beat around the bush, the British athletics team has been more successful during the reign of the dutchman compared to his predecessor, Dave Collins, who resigned after UKA's lack of success at the Beijing Games. He also has an incredible track record, coaching British athletes such as Denise Lewis and Kelly Sotherton to Olympic success.

However I often doubted his passion for the role, cutting the Women's 4x100m team's funding in 2010, and often got into arguments with Phillips Idowu, and yet still expected much from him at big events.

I also feel that Charles Van Commenee made the preparation for London more difficult than it needed to be, years in advance of the games he announced that no member of the Track and Field squad would be able to attend the Opening ceremony, which, in my opinion, should be the choice of the individual athlete, not one man.

As well as that, instead of training in Britain, the Dutchman forced the team to prepare for the Olympics out in Portugal, which would have probably de-climatised the squad, and then make them re-adjust to the British climate. He also publicly humiliated Phillips Idowu when he failed to make it out to Portugal due to injury.

Van Commenee chose to train in Portugal when the team trained their prior to the 2010 European Championships in Barcelona, what Van Commenee failed to realise was that while the Spanish and Portuguese climates are similar, they have very little in common with the British weather.

He also claims that training abroad helped the team escape the Olympic hype in Britain, this I do agree with, however training in Germany, France or Denmark would keep the athletes adjusted to the unpredictable weather.

However, let's not forget that Team GB athletics won 6 medals, within the forecasted number, and of the 6 medals, 4 of them were gold, putting Great Britain into 4th on the Athletics medal table. He also directed over two of their most successful world championships and one of their most successful European Championships.

I would like to wish Neil Black, the new Performance Director of UKA, luck in his new position. I hope he can build on the success of the past few years, and that he can increase on the medal haul in Rio.