New Scottish Athletics coach wants to hit ground running and sets sights on 2014

Published on Saturday 31 October 2009 20:12

AS THE clock struck midnight, Laurier Primeau took over, officially, as the new head coach of Scottish Athletics. There is, says the Canadian, no time to waste.

He only arrived in the country a few days ago but ample thought has already been given to negotiating the route map ahead. The sport, at the elite level at least, is hardly in the rudest of health.

With the difference between success and failure often measured in fractions of a second, he knows that the decision to import from overseas, rather than promote from within, will bring scrutiny of the results at the major events that are due to take place on his watch.

Yet the lure of producing athletes who can deliver in 2012 in London, and two years later in Glasgow, tempted him to apply for the newly-created post. "It's good to know that for the next four and a half years, we won't be blind-sided by lack of funding, or lack of resources," explains the 39-year-old.

Primeau's adaptive approach is one reason why he was poached from his native British Columbia for the role. Once a promising decathlete, he earned international honours as a hurdler before switching into the coaching business, both at the helm of a club in Vancouver and also as a personal mentor to a number of athletes, including the world junior high-jump champion, Mike Mason.

That's the rsum. The remit is more strategic than his title suggests.

"It's a bit of a misnomer," he emphasises. "There's not any expectation I'll work with individual athletes so I think head of coaching is probably a more accurate description."

Frank Dick, in charge of British athletics during its golden era, also begins his tenure today as Scottish Athletics' new chair. Never shy of expressing his opinion when on active duty, few expect Dick to be a passive figurehead during his two-year tenure.

Primeau is looking well beyond then, however. He has set himself an ambitious target of delivering more Scottish medals at the 2014 Commonwealths than at any previous Games. But not at 2010.

"With New Delhi less than 12 months away, it's going to be very difficult to have any effect on the results. The athletes who do well in India will not be because of, or despite, me. My influence, hopefully, will have more of an effect going into 2014."

There are fears of an exodus of Scottish talent to UK Athletics' upgraded elite performance centres in London and Loughborough. "We're not going to try and move anyone who is a great situation already. But we want to offer them quality alternatives," says Primeau.

Given that his salary is funded jointly by the Scottish and UK governing bodies, loyalties may, on occasion, be conflicted. The decision to grant just five Scots UKA funding in 2010 was an inauspicious welcome gift. "We would like to move to a place where the percentage of Scottish athletes on that list reflects the population," he says. The new arrival has yet to meet his UKA counterpart, Charles Van Commenee, but the Dutchman will not indulge in tokenism to keep the constituent nations on side.

"We want Commonwealth Games medals for Scotland," Primeau underlines, "and Scottish athletes on UK teams."