UK athletics official Julian Starkey who has been banned for a derogatory comment about black athletes.
A prominent British athletics official has been banned from serving on the sport’s national governing body for three years after he said black athletes were good at running “because they have to get away from their burglaries”.
Julian Starkey, a licensed coach who was chairman of the England Athletics board’s council, made the comment at a Sporting Equals leadership event, which was promoting diversity, in November.
It was alleged that he said the following or similar words in response to a question about participation rates drop off in ethnically diverse athletes: “Usually when athletes start to be more specific in events, most black athletes tend to edge towards sprinting and hurdling … the blacks are all good at running because they have to get away from their burglaries.”
England Athletics and UK Athletic took a case against him to an independent UK Athletics disciplinary panel, the Telegraph reported.
Starkey, 62, admitted he had made the comment, blaming mental health issues while claiming there had been “a gap between the first and second sentences”.
UK Athletics accepted that he was suffering from mental health problems but did not believe that this mitigated against the misconduct.
The panel said banned him from serving on the national body for three years and from coaching and being an official for two years. It said a two-year exclusion from serving on the national council “was too lenient when considering the severity of the misconduct”, the Telegraph reported.
“He had behaved in a manner which England Athletics considered disgraceful,” said the panel’s report.
