UK Athletics has launched a new initiative to raise standards in every Olympic athletic event in every age group and every region throughout the UK.
To run alongside the goal of delivering top level performances at the London 2012 Olympic Games, the Power of 10 programme has been set up with the aim of increasing the number of young athletes making the transition to senior competition.
The objective of the Power of 10 is to have at least 10 athletes in every event, in every region and every age group achieving times, distances or heights better than set annual targets. The scheme underpins the organisation’s aim of having athletes in 50% of the finals at the 2012 Games.
David Moorcroft said: “The Power of 10 is not just another initiative, or a list of athletics rankings. It is a year-on-year drive for greater strength in depth across all events and regions. After careful analysis of world, UK and regional standards and trends, we've built up a clear picture of the progress we will need to make in order to produce more world-class athletes.
“We can use the data to challenge ourselves. We can see where trends are developing; what’s working and what isn’t and transfer lessons from successful regions. The rankings will be published on a new interactive website www.powerof10.info and will be updated on a regular basis which means instant recognition for good performances and a platform for season-long competition across regions.”
Sebastian Coe added: “Winning medals is partly about setting yourself targets and exceeding them and the Power of 10 reinforces the importance of this. It is about creating an aspirational environment where mediocrity is unacceptable. This, combined with the right structure, support, funding and most importantly coaches will enable British athletes to stand up and be counted on the international stage. The Power of 10 is an excellent vehicle to help create the highly competitive environment that is so crucial in creating champions.”
Moorcroft added: “Access to these rankings will be open to all. This means a transparency and clarity of purpose we’ve never seen before in athletics. If we aren’t seeing consistent, season on season improvement, we’ll have achieved nothing. We have our goals, now we need to go out there and work together to achieve them”
The Power of 10 project is the result of a partnership between UK Athletics, England Athletics, Northern Ireland Athletics Federation, Scottish Athletics and Welsh Athletics.
The Power of 10 Targets have been set in 1233 events across the age groups both nationally and regionally. It will see 35,000 athletes ranked across all ages, events and regions on www.powerof10.info by the end of 2006 - there are currently over 20,000 athletes ranked from their 2006 performances.
The annual targets have been set using a master database – compiled by athletics statistician Rob Whittingham, - which contains top British performances back to the 1800s! The data used also includes every significant British performance of the last 50 years as well as data on international performances from more than 22,000 athletes.
Over the last 6 world-level competitions, British athletes got into, on average, 33% of finals compared with the 2012 target of 50%.
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