 Collins did not attend the Games in Melbourne |
UK Athletics performance director Dave Collins has defended his decision not to travel to the Commonwealth Games. Collins worked on longer-term projects in the UK while athletes from the home countries had a mixed time, with the men's sprinters heavily criticised.
"It's a judgement call," Collins told BBC Radio Five's Sportsweek programme.
"It's whether watching athletes from the stands that I've watched for the last five years will teach me more than I'm able to do in the UK."
Athletes from England, Scotland and Wales secured a total of 23 medals in track and field.
But those figures mask the fact that no UK male athlete reached the 200m and 800m finals and just one made the 100m final, in addition to failure in the 4x100m relay.
Collins, who took on his role in December 2004, said his time in the UK had been spent:
finalising contracts to make athletes and UK Athletics accountable for performance  |  I'm not sure some of our athletes are properly equipped to compete at the highest level any more |
looking into the distribution of athlete funding, with a major review focusing on "development athletes" planned when the team returns from Melbourne speaking with governing bodies of other sports on the possibility of the "transfer" of athletes into athletics if they are cut from other sports establishing a new medical system to cut down on the number of injuries Collins denied Michael Johnson's claims that sprinters in the UK are being "rewarded for mediocrity" and said he would welcome input and advice from Seb Coe, who criticised Collins for not being "at the coalface" in Melbourne.
Collins said he wanted to establish a system based on the successful models of swimming and cycling.
Meanwhile, British Olympics Association chairman Colin Moynihan has called for Coe, who helped bring the 2012 Olympics to London, to take on a leading role in revitalising athletics.
"Athletics has to be the jewel in the crown of Team 2012," Moynihan told the Sunday Telegraph.
"Action needs to be taken now and Seb Coe is the man for the job. His record in athletics is second to none and his organisational skills were self-evident in London's 2012 gold-medal bid."
Coe told Sportsweek that some athletes had to take responsibility for their disappointing displays.
"Some of the athletes are not doing what is needed to be done to become world class," said Coe.
"I'm not sure that some of them even recognise they are underperforming which is even more worrying.
"Some athletes have traded off the reputation the sport has had in better times and think they are better than they are.
"I know some teams here have privately passed judgement to me about the behaviour of athletes in the village. Some cyclists have privately said to me that they don't think that our athletes realise that the world's moved on.
"Nobody comes here thinking this is a holiday but I'm not sure they are properly equipped to compete at the highest level any more."
MMIX
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