Murray and Twell counting on hard graft

THE only men in white coats who studied Steve Jones in his marathon-running pomp were those who wondered if his pre-race diet of chocolate and cider rendered him one spike short of a full shoe. Conventional? Not he. Yet who could argue with the results that brought the Welshman a world record on the streets of Chicago 25 years ago.

These days, the former RAF technician combines his regular job as a house decorator in the hills of Colorado with his role as coach to a number of athletes, Freya Murray included. The Scot linked up with Jones two years ago and has now bought into his uncluttered approach. Such has been her improvement since that she heads into today's world cross-country championships in Poland with lofty ambitions. "Top 30 would be really good," states the 26-year-old from Edinburgh. "Top 20 would be great."

Jones shares her optimism. Yet he fears that Britain's decline in track and field has been fuelled by over-reliance on science at the expense of pure and simple graft. Look at the Africans, he says. Their success is built on sweat and tears rather than the testing of blood.

"Is there a place for it? I'm sure there is somewhere," Jones says. "But we've lost respect for running and doing the hard work. We use heart-rate monitors to make it easier. There's no spontaneity any more."

Not close to home, certainly, with UK Athletics confirming plans last week to concentrate its coaching and support resources at two high-performance centres: Lee Valley, near London, and Loughborough University. "I can understand why they're doing it because it's worked for cycling," says Murray, "but it's hard to tell if it will be the same for athletics."

Centralisation has left Mick Woods out in the cold. Coach to Murray's Scottish rival, Steph Twell, and other prospects at his base at St Mary's College in Twickenham, he saw both UKA's funding and his job withdrawn as a consequence of the plan. While Twell, 20, is seen as a potential Olympic medallist, she will now opt out of the "official" system.

Woods shares Jones' belief that less can be more, crunching data only during Twell's weekly 40-minute excursion on the treadmill. "We monitor her wellbeing off that run. Because we do that every week, we can measure her blood and heart-rate. We can see what the trends are to keep an eye on her nutrition and see the effects from the strength and conditioning work she puts in. The rest of the week, we just train."

That graft will be required in Bydgoszcz where – in tandem with European champion Hayley Yelling – Britain's women have an outside shot at team bronze behind the duopoly of Kenya and Ethiopia.