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Row sparks date change
The St Mary's Classic has reverted to its original date of Wednesday, June 4, following a howl of protest from club team managers.
Plans to hold the event on Sunday, July 8, would have meant clashes with the opening matches in the men's British Athletics League and the UK Women's League.
Tony Benton, women's team manager of Havering Mayesbrook, was only alerted to the weekend date when one of his international athletes told him she would be unavailable.
The plan to hold the St Mary's event on the Sunday attracted a raft of protests from clubs across the country.
The meeting also includes the UK 10,000m women's track championship and Beijing Olympic trial, a Home Countries international involving England, Scotland and Wales, individual track events from 800m upwards and 4x100m and 4x400m relay races for men and women.
"I am not sure if there was any consultation with the leagues, whose dates were fixed last autumn and well known to UK Athletics," said Benton.
"The Home Countries international would have effectively wiped out track athletes from 100m to 3,000m plus the steeplechase.
"It made a mockery of the supposed careful planning, which gets all concerned round the table to agree a fixture list that avoids such clashes."
Initially, Cherry Alexander, UK Athletics competition manager, had defended the decision to hold the St Mary's event on June 8.
"The scheduled televised meeting in Scotland on June 8, which would have given high level competition to about 60 British athletes, had been cancelled," she said.
"UK Athletics had requests from coaches and athletes to ensure there were four middle-distance races with international athletes, to ensure high quality competition between June 1 and 8."
However, last Tuesday evening, she confirmed there had been a U-turn.
Her e-mail to complaining clubs stated: "Following your comments and our discussions with other key people, the St Mary's Classic event will be held on June 4."
A statement on UK Athletics website added: "Following discussion with competition providers, it was felt that keeping the fixture on June 4 would satisfy athlete requirements and not cause a clash with fixtures already scheduled for early June."
Professor Richard Fisher, who is organising the St Mary's Classic, said he was happy with the decision to switch it back to June 4.
It will start with local primary school relays at 4.15pm and end with the women's 10,000m trial at 8.15pm.
It is still intended to hold the Home Countries international and Fisher hopes that that with the switch to midweek, Wales - who had pulled out - might now participate.
8:21am Thursday 8th May 2008
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