Helen Clitheroe may have enjoyed the greatest night of her athletics career on Sunday, but she will not be rewarded with lottery funding unless she takes her form outdoors.
The 37-year-old, who had her financial backing cut in 2009, is the highest-ranked indoors 3,000 metres runner in Europe this year and sixth in the world.
Her gold medal at the European Indoor Championships in Paris crowned a remarkable renaissance, but Charles van Commenee, the UK Athletics head coach, tethered his enthusiasm to reality.
Would she be getting her funding back now? “Not based on this performance,” the Dutchman said. “But if she does it outdoors and is getting results that indicate she has a reasonable chance to make top eight in the Olympics, then yes. [The] world-class performance plan is based on global performances.”
Sadly for Clitheroe, but sensibly for Britain’s 2012 ambitions, the European Indoors are not regarded as global. But if Van Commenee does a fine line in brutal honesty, he was hugely impressed by the romance of Clitheroe’s story. “This is a very special medal for her at her age,” he said. “Perseverance rewarded.”
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At the other end of the age scale, Van Commenee joined the Jodie Williams fan club. The 17-year-old clocked a personal best of 7.21sec for the 60 metres and missed out on a medal in her first senior championships by just 0.01sec.
“Nobody could have predicted that,” he said. “That was one of the very special performances here for our team. Breaking her personal best in this environment is very special. I like those surprises. She’s the sort of athlete that every country is waiting for.”