Image putting in the miles, making the sacrifices, keeping the faith, then earning that dream outcome: a chance to race for your country. But then image this caveat: you’ll only get this chance if you pay for it.
This was the predicament for elite athlete Ben Connor, who was quite literally asked to pay the price for achieving a place to represent Great Britain in the half marathon at the 2025 European Road Running Championships.
The 32-year-old athlete, who has already competed for Great Britain on the road, on the track and for cross-country, turned down his spot to race at this year’s Championships – which will be staged for the first time in Brussels and Leuven later this month – due to participation fees of up to £1,100 imposed by British Athletics.
As per British Athletics’ selection policy, the fees cover attendance costs such as accommodation, travel, kit, meals and staff.
Connor, who became the British 10,000m champion at the Night of the 10,000m PB’s in 2019, took to Instagram to articulate why he’s turned down this Great Britain vest – despite having worked so hard to attain it.
‘BA [British Athletics] are asking for a significant athlete contribution which up until a few days ago was an unknown amount and although England Athletics have offered to subsidise this for their athletes, which I’m sure many are grateful for, I feel it is wrong,’ wrote Connor, who won the 2017 English National Cross Country Championships and qualified to compete for Team GB in the men’s Olympic marathon at the 2020 Games in Tokyo.
‘Representing your country is a privilege and in athletics is earned via a qualifying process, which whilst not always perfect, gives everyone the same chances to gain selection,’ continued Connor. ‘Representing GB shouldn’t come down to who can or cannot afford to pay for it. Coming from a working class background, I don’t like the potential precedence being set where people, especially junior athletes of the future, don’t have the same development or competition opportunities because of finances.’
As Connor acknowledges in his post, running – especially road running – is booming in popularity at the moment, with more people than ever before putting one foot in front of the other and signing up to long-distance events like half marathons and marathons.
Talent, promise and hard work in running by no means directly correlates with wealth. However, in Connor’s words, British Athletics is ‘asking our best to pay to represent this country on an international stage’.
In a statement, UK Athletics (UKA) wrote that athletes were aware of the costs involved when they first expressed their interest in competing in the Championships – and that these costs were likely to be under £500. It also noted that increasingly more competitions are being created at an international level and that ‘it is impossible for the sport to fund all teams’. As such, ‘UKA feels it is better to give athletes opportunity to compete than opt not to send teams at all’.
Does this response compensate for the costs incurred? At present, it’s up to Great Britain’s top-ranking athletes to decide.
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