It often appears that athletics (and other sports) is all about medals at major championships.  Talent identification, fast tracking athletes to the big name coaches, bums on seats at major events, medals at Olympics and World Champs etc etc.  

It seems that if we take the cream of the talent and develop them, almost to the exclusion of all others, we are going to end up with a very empty sport.  This isn't necessary just conjecture either - the numbers of athletes at matches at the lower levels of athletics have dwindled substantially in the 25 years or so I've been involved in the sport.

Just a small example of this is that the first ever Southern League match I took part in in 1987 I did the B string 400m in Division 3.  I came 3rd in 51.8.  There is rarely an A string winner who does that time in the same league in 2008.

Without mass participation in the sport and lots of competition for places in teams the grass roots of athletics will gradually fade away and this will soon permeate the higher levels of athletics too.  Athletics is not the only sport that seems to be suffering from this - tennis champions talk about identifying future talent when they are 6,7 and 8 years old.  Even earlier than athletes.  Not once do these ex-champions talk about the fun the kids should be having and how they should be playing with their mates whilst (as a side benefit to this) learning the skills for a sport.  We hear stories of football clubs who are signing up younger and younger players on contracts and then telling them it will be detrimental for their careers to be doing other sports too much as it will disrupt football training - a vast majority of whom are not taken on as professionals at a later date.

Kids should be encouraged to try a wide range of sports and have fun with them - not settling into one sport too soon to the exclusion of all else.  At a sensible age, where a young person can make an informed choice they can then specialise in the sport of their choice (may vary from 13-17 depending on the youngsters abilities, maturity and chosen sport).  This doesn't mean they can't work hard and still have fun - but there should be an all-round nature to their activities rather than narrow blinkered focus.

Apart from anything else, this inclusive (and I still mean competitive) sport (not a kind of woolly, knitted yoghurt kind of hippy utopia - I have run too many courses for kids to not know that they love games and competition above other activities) gets kids fit and healthy on a much more general scale - rather than excluding all but the most talented.

Much of this work needs to be done at the grass roots level I talked about earlier, getting youngsters excited about trying sports, enjoying the camaraderie of being in a team and the excitement of competitions, where the taking part is as important as winning.  From these roots the future champions will develop and the whole sport will flourish.