Proof 10k popularity hasn't run its course

IT IS quite incongruous and more than a little ironic that around 10,000 people took to the streets of Edinburgh yesterday to run the Bupa Great Edinburgh 10km Run, many in highly respectable times, among them many club runners, and all at considerable expense – at least £24.

What's ironic about this? Well, this scene of streets packed with runners could be witnessed barely 24 hours after Scottish Athletics had announced that so few runners are these days willing to contest the equivalent distance on the track that the event is to be dropped, effective immediately, from the national championships.

Embarrassingly, only four entered last year's national 10,000m – an event in which Scotland, thanks to the likes of Ian Stewart, Lachie Stewart and Liz McColgan, has a proud record. Or had a proud record. Last year's field comprised three men and one woman. The men were all from the same club, Shettleston Harriers. The women's title was claimed with a time more than eight minutes outside McColgan's national record.

Something had to be done. And something is being done, with the 10,000m titles not abandoned – far from it.

Instead, an imaginative solution: these races will form part of the programme at a televised meeting – the full details of which are still to be revealed by Scottish Athletics – being staged at Grangemouth on 1 July. And they will be lucrative: more than £1,500 is up for grabs in prize money.

Mike Johnston, the national endurance manager, is relieved. "This is something I've been pushing for a couple of years," he says. "Having the 10k and 5k races in a two-day (national championship] programme makes it difficult for athletes to attempt both, so separating them makes sense. We're also adding a team competition, and maybe that'll bring out a few more clubs." It is not that people are not capable of, or interested in, running the distance, as the proliferation of 10k road races demonstrate. Yet getting just a few of these runners on to the track presents quite a challenge. "It's a little hobby horse of mine," says Johnston – through gritted teeth, you suspect. "The skills of running on the track transfer to the road, but not vice-versa. I believe that 5k and 10k skills must be honed on a track, where you need to be able to run in close proximity to others – whereas in a road race you can simply move to a quieter bit of road."

The revamped 10,000m title races could have added lustre if they entice athletes still chasing Olympic qualifying times – this is a distinct possibility in the women's race. But as well as quality, Johnston hopes to attract a high entry in terms of numbers – hence the introduction of the team competition, based on cumulative times. If some of the vast legions of road runners can be lured on to the track then perhaps, one day, someone will emerge to challenge two of the oldest Scottish records in the book: men's and women's 10,000m, still held by Ian Stewart (in 1977) and McColgan (1991).

Getting ready for Glasgow

GLASGOW'S Commonwealth Games preparations are stepping up with a chief executive, John Scott, in place and the 2014 Organising Committee advertising a raft of other positions last week.

In mid-June the city will also host the second Commonwealth Sports Development Conference, aimed at creating pathways for talented young people, and developing community clubs. The two-day conference will coincide with the Commonwealth Games Federation's annual ball, where the prestigious Commonwealth Sportsman of the Year will be named. Chris Hoy is fancied to claim this honour for the first time.

Scott's appointment, meanwhile, has the approval of another Scottish cyclist, David Millar. As head of anti-doping at UK Sport Scott encouraged Millar's overtures to help the anti-doping effort, and proposed him to the World Anti-Doping Agency's athletes' panel. "He's an impressive guy with real gravitas," says Millar.

Adult activity on the wane

ONE of the more contentious promised 'legacies' of the 2014 Commonwealth Games is to increase participation.

Mainly this refers to getting children and young people fit and active, but it should target adults as well, according to the Scottish Sports Association's policy director Chris Robison. The SSA is alarmed by an Audit Scotland report, published last week, which states that participation in sport among adults is declining at a rapid rate.

In 2001 49 per cent of adults took part in sport at least once a week; by 2006 it had dropped to 42 per cent. Participation by younger people also fails to meet national targets, though one target that is being met is at elite level, with 283 Scots winning medals in international competition by 2007, against a target of 250.

The SSA's main beef is with the "fragmentation in the delivery of sports and other services", with "no clear links between the Scottish Government's national strategy for sport and councils' investment of money in facilities and services."

Local councils, they point out, are responsible for 90 per cent of the £558million of public money invested in sport each year.

There is a need, they add, "to maximise the potential of the wonderful sports facilities currently locked up in schools."

"If the government wants to boost participation," says Robison, "it should mark the build-up to 2014 by opening up access to all local facilities in ways that help people participate."