Over the next three years, a former British Athletics director will not be allowed to serve on a national governing body for competitive sports.
He has been banned from his position after alleging Black athletes ran faster than their white counterparts “because they have to get away from their burglaries.”
A shocking report released by a UK Athletics Disciplinary Panel noted that Julian Starkey, who was the chair of Bracknell Athletics Club and a licensed coach, made the inflammatory statements in November 2022 at a Sporting Equals Leadership event, according to The Telegraph.
Starkey was asked about why certain groups of ethnicities tend to gravitate to certain sports over time.
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He reportedly answered, “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.”
Starkey, 62, did not deny making the bigoted statements after they were brought before England Athletics and UK Athletics boards. He said the statement was not expressed in its totality, adding, “There was a gap between the first sentence and the second sentence.”
He said he made the derogatory comments while he was dealing with some “mental health challenges,” and that influenced the shameful statements.
The boards accepted his rationale but did not excuse his actions.
As a result, the organizations both came up with a solution, to ban the coach for multiple years.
“Holding a position in the governance structures of the national bodies [is] a higher position and people in the sport should rightly look up to the people in those positions,” the UK Athletics panel wrote in its decision. “A two-year ban was too lenient when considering the severity…
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