The coach who guided Laura Muir to Olympic and world championship medals has been banned for three years for serious misconduct, including driving at speed with an athlete in his car after a disagreement before abandoning them at the roadside.
Andy Young, who also coached Jemma Reekie to fourth place in the 800m at the Tokyo Games, was found by two independent panels to have placed performance above athlete welfare, ignored medical advice and used manipulative and coercive behaviour towards those he coached.
The 48-year-old, who was UK Athletics’ performance coach of the year in 2016, was also found to have made an athlete train when they had foot pain that turned out to be a stress fracture, and threatened to exclude athletes from training or races if they did not comply with his demands. His ban was backdated to his suspension in 2023, so he will be able to return to coaching in April next year.
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“Mr Young could be very forceful to the point of exerting pressure so severe that it amounted to manipulation or bullying,” the initial independent panel found in its written judgment. “This resulted in athletes feeling that they had no realistic option but to acquiesce to his wishes if they wished to remain within his training group.”
Such behaviour, the panel added, included instructing an athlete to post a tweet “that would be very likely to cause annoyance to their sponsor and risked harming their relationship with the sponsor” – something it said was wholly unnecessary.
On another occasion, Young was found to have made a comment about an athlete’s weight which upset them while the coach was driving. In response, Young began to drive very fast such that the athlete asked to get out of the car. When they did so, Young drove off.
Muir and Reekie split with Young after disagreements over his behaviour at a warm-weather training camp in Potchefstroom, South Africa, in 2023, after which he was suspended.
The athletes involved, six in total, are anonymised in the reports. A statement from UKA did not indicate if Reekie was among the complainants, however Muir said she was waiving her anonymity to confirm her involvement in the case.
“I fully support the decisions reached by both independent panels and I am grateful that the process has been followed through so thoroughly,” she said.
“Athletics has always been my passion, and I am pleased to say that I have rediscovered the love of my sport and the enjoyment of training and working within a supportive and positive coaching environment. I am now focused on the future, looking forward to the next few years of my career, and putting this difficult chapter firmly behind me.”
Young was banned for five years by the first independent panel after it upheld nine of 37 charges against him. That was reduced by three years by an appeals panel, though it rejected Young’s claims of bias, legal error and unfairness in the initial hearing. It also agreed that seven of his breaches were serious and that revocation of his licence was necessary to protect athletes.
The verdict is the latest in a series of coaching scandals that have hit British Olympic sport across cycling, swimming, athletics and elsewhere, over the past decade. However, the UK Athletics chief executive, Jack Buckner, promised that “significant culture change” had been made within his organisation in recent years, including strengthening reporting systems for athletes.
“This has been a difficult and sobering case for everyone involved in athletics,” he said. “There is no level of success on the track which can ever justify behaviours that fall so short of the standards required of a UKA licensed coach.
Young has been approached for comment.
