Athletics Canada makes changes to technical leadership structure

Athletics Canada makes changes to technical leadership structure

Ottawa - Athletics Canada announced important changes today to its technical leadership structure. Effective immediately Olympic program Head Coach Alex Gardiner and Chief High Performance Officer Martin Goulet have been relieved of their duties.

Rob Guy, Athletics Canada Chief Executive Officer, "First and foremost I want to thank Alex and Martin for their many years of service to the organization. They both played important roles and had positive impacts on Athletics Canada's high performance program."

"The feeling after London (2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games) was generally encouraging as a number of young talented athletes stepped up and made great strides. However we still didn't hit our performance targets of three and fourteen medals respectively. We felt we needed a different style and leadership structure to ensure we reach our high performance objectives moving forward," said Guy.

Guy adds, "These decisions are never easy to make, but the bottom line is we haven't achieved our performance objectives as laid out in the association's strategic plan for the last four quadrennials. It's part of my role to ensure our technical structure and coaching leadership provides the right vision and framework for our athletes and coaches to take the next step in Rio."

Consistent with Athletics Canada's strategic plan, the next head coach will oversee both the Olympic and Paralympic programs. "There is a lot of work to do in the Paralympic program, our system needs to be rebuilt. We need to ensure the next generation of stars are groomed to support our current crop of veterans. Our next technical leaders will come in with the necessary vision and the plan to execute on this," said Guy.

The search for a head coach and director of high performance to lead Athletics Canada's Olympic and Paralympic programs will officially begin Friday morning.

-AC-

For more information contact:
Mathieu Gentès
Director, Public Relations and Corporate Services
Athletics Canada
(613) 260-5580 x.3303
mgentes@athletics.ca