2012 Olympic Coaches Leave Posts

The elite performance directors responsible for GB’s Olympic hopes in
shooting and women’s basketball at the London 2012 Games have both left
their jobs.

British Shooting has decided to make performance director John Leighton-Dyson redundant as part of a major shake-up after a heavy funding cut. Leighton-Dyson has been in the job for the last eight years.

Meanwhile Mark Clark has resigned as the head coach of the Great Britain women’s basketball with the team struggling to qualify for London 2012.

For British Shooting, the figure of 46 funded competitors from the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics is set to be reduced to five for the London Games.

Shooting suffered the heaviest funding cut of all Olympic sports, with a 76% reduction to £1.225m over four years.
 
Great Britain’s shooting team was set a target of two Olympic medals in Beijing by the British Olympic Association but came back with none.

GB women’s basketball coach Clark had been in charge for three seasons and led the side to promotion to EuroBasket Division A in 2007.

However Britain were relegated in January, leaving their participation in the 2012 Olympics in doubt. Clark resigned after a meeting of officials last weekend.

The International Basketball Federation (FIBA) has insisted the GB team must be ‘competitive’ in order to play in the Olympics in 2012.