The former sprinter moves into the role from his position as head of performance and coaching at Athletics Australia
Christian Malcolm has been confirmed as the new Olympic head coach of UK Athletics (UKA).
The former sprinter, who competed for Great Britain & Northern Ireland at four Olympic Games and won world, European and Commonwealth medals, has been head of performance and coaching at Athletics Australia since January 2019 and will take up his new post later this year.
It is understood that Malcolm was selected for the UKA role ahead of Scottish Athletics’ performance and coaching director Stephen Maguire and former UKA and Athletics Canada head coach Peter Eriksson, and he will now work with athletes and coaches to prepare for the postponed Tokyo Olympics next summer.
“Words can’t describe how excited I am to have the opportunity to take this role on and be part of a new start for British Athletics,” Malcolm said. “As an athlete I knew I wanted to give back to the sport when I finished competing.”
During his own sprinting career, which saw him feature on the cover of AW on a number of occasions (pictured), Malcolm won double world junior gold in 1998 before claiming multiple major medals for Great Britain and Wales.
He retired from competition in 2014 and went on to become British Athletics’ technical lead for sprint relays, a position he held from March 2015 to December 2019. In 2017 he was jointly named coach of the year with Maguire and Benke Blomkvist at the BBC Sports Personality awards, following the double sprint relay success achieved by the 4x100m teams at the home World Championships in London.
Malcolm is the second recent major appointment announced by UKA following the news that Sara Symington would be stepping into the performance director role in the autumn.
Joanna Coates has been in her CEO position since March.
“I am really pleased to appoint Christian to this role,” said Coates. “His credentials are numerous but most impressive was the energy and vision he had for the head coach role during the recruitment process.
“The panel were incredibly impressed by both his technical knowledge and approach to high performance – putting the athlete first, championing welfare and also a change in culture that will really enhance the world class programme.
“Alongside Sara, Christian will bring a fresh new approach to the performance team as we head towards Tokyo and future Olympic cycles.”
Malcolm added: “In all my coaching and advisory roles so far, I have wanted to help athletes avoid the errors I made and support them and their coaches to get the best out of themselves. I’ve worked with some world class coaches throughout my career whilst competing, as part of the GB relay set up and whilst at Athletics Australia. They’ve all helped me to grow in various ways, but I know my first coach Jock Anderson would have been the most pleased to see me take this role and use all that he taught me about helping athletes prepare.
“I’m very excited to be re-joining British Athletics at this time. Jo and Sara have a great outlook as to what the sport can achieve from playground to podium. There is a new energy and drive and I’m looking forward to helping athletes and coaches towards success in Tokyo, Paris and beyond.”
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