UK Athletics boss comes out in defence of World Championships selection amid legal action threat
- Seb Sternik
- 28 July 2023
Several athletes have hit out at the World Championships selection policy, with one suggesting she would be happy to join any legal action.
UK Athletics technical director Stephen Maguire has defended their World Championships selection policy after some athletes threatened legal action for missing out.
Zharnel Hughes, Keely Hodgkinson and Dina Asher-Smith will lead Great Britain's hopes in Budapest next month.
But those who will next week see invites from World Athletics, based on their world ranking, rejected by UKA are unhappy.
UKA will not pick them based on their own selection policy which requires athletes to have hit the World Athletics qualification mark or their own selection standard.
UKA's chief executive, Jack Buckner, said in February he wanted the selection policy to be more ruthless as they hunt more medals.
Several athletes, including Lina Nielsen (400m hurdles), Josh Zeller (110m hurdles) and Amelia Strickler (shot put), had hit out at the selection policy, with Strickler suggesting she would be happy to join any legal action.
Maguire said: "Our selection policy and the selection is very much based on a philosophy of challenging and ultimately winning medals.
"I'm not too sure it is about being ruthless. It's about being really clear and what our expectation is.
"Our philosophy is how are we going to be able to have the best team to represent those competitions with a very clear goal and, unashamedly really, a really clear goal of how do we challenge for final positions?
"This selection policy has reflected that and we have a strong team.
"The policy has been out for a while and, absolutely, when people don't make standards or whatever, there's probably a bit of emotion.
"Emotion is a big part of high performance sport.
"I wouldn't really have any comment about legal action or whatever, it's not really my remit and I just know that we've put it out well in advance and are really clear of the expectations."
Holly Bradshaw, who was aiming to go to Budapest via ranking points, is not initially included after an injury-hit 12 months for the Olympic pole vault bronze medallist but is expected to ultimately make the squad.
New British 100m and 200m record holder Hughes is the fastest man in the world over 100m this year and is expected to challenge in Hungary.
He ran 9.83 seconds in New York in June to break Linford Christie's 30-year 100m record before shattering John Regis' 200m mark to clock 19.73 seconds in London on Sunday.
Asher-Smith, along with Daryll Neita, is included for the 100m and 200m, with Hodgkinson targeting gold in the 800m after last year's silver.
Katarina Johnson-Thompson will aim to continue her comeback in the heptathlon, while Matthew Hudson-Smith is aiming to improve on his 400m bronze medal from last year's World Championships in Eugene.
Jemma Reekie (800m), Laura Muir (1500m), Eilish McColgan (10,000m), Jazmin Sawyers (long jump), Max Burgin (800m) and Reece Prescod (100m) are also selected.
Accountant Eugene Amo-Dadzie, 31, who only took up athletics four years ago, is in the team for 100m and 4x100m relay squad, which also includes Adam Gemili, having run 9.93 seconds in June.
