Mark Pollard and Julie Mollison roles are made permanent appointments

Friday 25th June 2021

Mark Pollard and Julie Mollison – their lead roles with scottishathletics have now been confirmed

scottishathletics are delighted to confirm permanent appointments for Mark Pollard and Julie Mollison.

We announced in late December that Mark would take over as our Head of Performance and Julie would assume a new role as Head of Coaching Development and Talent.

The appointments were ‘interim’ for the first six months of 2021 and we are now pleased to confirm that both roles have been made permanent.

Initial goals earlier this year – across all our staff as well as key volunteers – put the post-pandemic recovery of the sport at all levels as the key issue.

Now, looking ahead, we are seeking to regain momentum and stimulate growth at grassroots and club level and encourage excellence at elite level. These aspirations are in line with our current strategy ‘Building a Culture of Success’.

There’s a big weekend ahead for Scottish athletes with the British Champs and Olympic Trials taking place in Manchester and British Athletics also in the throes of a number of selection announcements over the next couple of weeks.

Four Scots have already been picked for Japan (in marathon and 10,000m: Callum Hawkins, Steph Davis, Steph Twell and Eilish McColgan) and next Tuesday will see a further team announcement from the British Olympic Association on the main cohort – with hopefully Scots firmly to the fore.

On Wednesday, Maria Lyle and Jo Butterfield were among the first wave (of 12 athletes) selected to represent GB and NI at the Paralympics in Japan later this summer.

Maria and Jo are picked for the Paralympics

Colin Hutchison . . . chief executive is delighted to confirm the permanent appointments of Julie Mollison and Mark Pollard (photo by Bobby Gavin)

Stephen Maguire stands down as Director of Coaching and Performance

‘It is great to be able to confirm the appointments of Mark Pollard and Julie Mollison in two critical roles for the organisation and for athletics in Scotland,’ said chief executive, Colin Hutchison.

‘This is an extremely exciting time for the sport as club training and competition has returned and we can now begin looking forward to Tokyo 2020.

‘The Commonwealth Games in Birmingham is also on the horizon and these appointments bring significant experience and stability within our performance team.

‘There is a need to further develop and evolve our support for coaches across the event groups and having a role focussed on making this happen, working closely with the event group leads, is an important step for athletics in Scotland.’