Tower Hamlets have not done enough to nurture athletics talent ahead of the Olympics, the head coach of Victoria Harriers Athletics Club has claimed.

Alf Vicars told the Hackney Post that facilities at his club – the closest athletics team to the 2012 games site – had fallen into disrepair.

The Harriers’ running track at Mile End Stadium  is the training ground for Hackney Olympic hopefuls and was the first club of triple jump world indoor champion Phillips Idowu.  However it is nine years overdue for replacement and badly worn. Vicars said the broken surface is now causing injuries to young athletes.

“A replacement is way overdue. The track is pretty poor. When the tracks get hard and you’re doing a lot of training on them it tends to bring on shin splints,” he said. “A lot of the athletes suffer from that and that’s because of the hardness of the track.

Floodlighting at the stadium is also faulty and prone to black-outs. Mr Vicars said they have been there since 1966.

“They’ve got a company coming in and they keep coming back but it’s poor to be honest.”

Mr Vicars added that support from both Hackney Council and Tower Hamlets Council has been lacking.

“In other areas they’ve set up funds to help try to find some potential Olympic athletes. I don’t think the council in Tower Hamlets has done anything about it and I don’t think the council in Hackney has done anything about it either. They’ve been very slow coming forward.

“I understand why they’re spending so much money on regeneration but without the athletics and without the sport there couldn’t be this regeneration.

“There are better facilities elsewhere but there are bad transport links to these.”

A spokesperson for Tower Hamlets council said:

“Tower Hamlets Council works very closely with schools, sports clubs, and local, national and international sporting bodies to nurture budding athletes across the borough.

“We have a range of measures to encourage the uptake of athletics. These include a dedicated Athletics Development Officer who works with schools, athletes and sports clubs, as well as training to help teachers be better athletics coaches. We also coordinate primary school sports hall athletics, as an introduction to the core skills of athletics.

“This is supported by excellent leisure provision, such as Mile End Leisure Centre, an award winning leisure complex which was opened in 2005/2006 after a £15m revamp. Mile End Leisure Centre and Stadium is an approved pre-Games athletics training camp for Olympians competing in the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.”

A spokesperson for Hackney council defended the training ground popular with Hackney athletes. He said:

“The Council’s Sports Services provides financial assistance towards the cost of sporting facilities and equipment through a number of different grant programmes, including the Hackney Youth Sports Fund and Hackney Personal Bests.”

 Picture courtesy by Danny McL