Athletics in the UK: The Rise and Fall of the BAF

127 What about the athletes? the athletes, through their association, given a direct say and stake in the televised events. The British Athletes Association would effectively be a modern version of the former International Athletes Club that had folded in 1993 after it lost its TV contract and ran out of money. The Association was eventually launched in September 1996 with an initial board of directors that, significantly, included both Christie and Jackson. Atlanta, USA, was the venue for the 1996 Olympic Games with Britain under the spotlight after its two gold medals in Barcelona four years before. It was not to be a repeat performance and, although British athletes won more medals, there was no gold. Jonathan Edwards could not quite live up to his pre-Olympic billing as favourite and returned home with a silver medal, along with Steve Backley, Roger Black and the men’s 4x400m relay team. Denise Lewis took the heptathlon bronze and Steve Smith won bronze in the high jump. 1997 dawned and with it another world championships, this time in Athens, the home of the first Olympics of the modern era in 1886. Many had expected Athens to be chosen to stage the centenary edition of the Olympic Games in 1996 but the city had missed out to Atlanta and would have wait another eight years before hosting the 2004 Games. With bankruptcy looming for the cash strapped BAF, the money was nevertheless found to send a team to Athens. It was a relatively disappointing championship as Britain returned home without a gold medal, the yardstick of real success. Five silver medals were won by Colin Jackson (110m hurdles), Jonathan Edwards (triple jump), Steve Backley (javelin), Denise Lewis (heptathlon) and the men’s 4x400m and 4x100m relay teams. Some years later, the 4x400m silver medal was elevated to gold when the winning USA team was disqualified following a doping confession by Antonio Pettigrew. The gloom over the results from Athens was matched by that within the BAF which filed for administration a few weeks later. During this long period from the early eighties to the late nineties, British athletes had maintained Britain’s excellent international reputation with strings of world class performances and this is described in detail in Tony Ward’s fascinating book “ The Golden Decade ”. Sadly, the