Christian Malcolm joins Athletics Ireland's performance team

Athletics Ireland have made a notable addition to their performance team with former UK Athletics head coach Christian Malcolm joining as sprints lead.

Malcolm brings extensive experience having previously served as head coach with Australian Athletics from September 2018, before returning to Britain in September 2020 to take up the leading coaching role.

Prior to his move to Australia, he was an integral part of GB's relay success and earned Coach of the Year Award at the 2017 BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards after GB’s sprint relay teams collected medals in all four World Championship events in London 2017, including gold in the Men’s 4x100m.

During his running career he was a world class sprinter, being crowned champion in the World Indoor Championships and World Championships.

He finished fifth over 200m at the Olympic Games in 2000 and the same spot 2008.

Malcolm’s key responsibilities will be leadership to the sprints event-group, to engage with and support priority coach-athlete pairs and supported coaches, and to oversee the relay programme and support its existing coaching team.

Athletics Ireland performance director Paul McNamara said "We’re delighted that Christian will join our team and believe he can add real value to our elite sprinters and their coaches, and our relay squads, which have seen unprecedented levels of success in recent years.

"Christian brings significant experience and insight from large programmes with major success on the global stage, and I’ve no doubt he will positively impact on this trajectory of success."

Malcolm said the rising stars in Ireland led to him joining: "I’m really excited to take on this role as Ireland builds towards Paris 2024 and beyond.

"There is some really exciting