Laura Muir and Jemma Reekie were seen returning home from South Africa following a shocking fallout with their longtime coach Andy Young.
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Laura Muir, the Tokyo Olympic silver medalist, and Jemma Reekie, a member of Team Great Britain and fourth-place finisher in Tokyo, have reportedly parted ways from long-serving coach, Andy Young. They were seen returning home from South Africa following a shocking fallout with their longtime coach Andy Young. In response to a question from the Guardian, Young, who over the course of their 12-year relationship has assisted Muir in winning 11 major medals, including a 1500m silver at Tokyo 2020, denied any major breakup had occurred. He did, however, suggest that there had been issues regarding his conduct at a recent warm-weather training camp in Potchefstroom.
Young said that there was no altercation. If you spoke to the girls, “I think you would discover that they were concerned about my health. They thought I wasn’t taking care of myself properly and possibly the pressure was getting to me. They were, in my opinion, interpreting it too literally.” According to reports, Laura Muir and Jemma Reekie, are currently training independently at Loughborough University while they think about their futures, while Young has remained in South Africa. With only 15 months until the Paris Olympics, however, several reliable sources now believe that the partnership is over, leaving two of Britain’s best athletes without a coach.
British Athletics acknowledged in a statement that he was assisting both athletes “reviewing” in their preparation for a new season. “We can confirm that Laura Muir and Jemma Reekie left their altitude training site last week to head back to the UK, according to the statement. “World Class Program staff and services are continuing to collaborate with both athletes to ensure they get the support they need as they review their training and competition schedules for the upcoming season.”
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Young has been Muir’s mentor ever since she began her veterinary studies at the University of Glasgow in 2011. She wasn’t thought to have the potential to become an elite athlete at the time. But Young, the leader of the student running club. He saw something that led him to text a friend that he had “the next Paula Radcliffe/Kelly Holmes.”
And three years later she was representing Great Britain at the 2014 World Indoor Championships. Muir broke Holmes’s British 1500m record two years after she set it. After narrowly missing the Olympic podium at the Rio Games in 2016, Muir finally achieved it in Tokyo. She added four more medals to her haul the previous year, including 1500m gold, 800m bronze, 1500m gold at the European Championships, and 1500m bronze at the World Championships in Eugene.
Although no one questions Young’s coaching skills. But he has occasionally been criticized for being overly protective of his two-star runners. When he learned that questions about their Nike super spikes would be asked during a British media interview with the pair in 2020. Young threatened to cancel it. This raised concerns about how tightly he controls his athletes training, media appearances, and race schedules. Nevertheless, Muir has previously praised Young’s influence on her career, saying: “It was intense, and he taught me how to push myself. He knew how to push me and inspire me to move through various stages.
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