The Electronic Telegraph Friday 26 September 2003 Sue Mott
Denise Lewis is expected to sever links with the controversial German coach, Dr Ekkart Arbeit, in the next few weeks and move to Birmingham to work with the man who led her to the Olympic heptathlon gold medal at the 2000 Games in Sydney. With the Olympics in Athens only a year away, Lewis will return from a holiday next month and have discussions with Charles van Commenee, her former coach, about a significant shift in her training arrangements which looks certain to precipitate a split with Arbeit. It is thought to be highly unlikely that Van Commenee, the technical director of combined events for UK Athletics, based at the Alexandra Stadium in Birmingham, would countenance working alongside Arbeit, prominent for two decades in the former East Germany's programme to administer drugs to athletes. Van Commenee said last night: "I am going to sit down with Denise and go over all the options. "Nothing has been finalised but I will tell you this: if you have a group of 20 athletes, call them the high fliers, then it is normal for five or six of them to make major changes to the structure of their coaching. You look at all the elements that affect every single thing they do and you see where you can make an improvement." Lewis, determined to make a comeback after the birth of her daughter last year, has endured a nomadic existence in the last few months, dividing her time between Holland, Belgium, Germany (to train with Arbeit) and the UK. "She has been quite a traveller," Van Commenee said. The inference can be drawn that she is now more likely to concentrate her efforts in one place, where Van Commenee is based and where she can utilise the medical and scientific resources of the English Institute of Sport. Lewis had acknowledged prior to the World Championships that the criticism surrounding her use of Arbeit had been disruptive. She finished sixth in Paris and prompted speculation about a possible split with Arbeit by appearing to turn to Van Commenee for advice during the long jump. At the time, Van Commenee denied there was any significance. "People are making two plus two equal five," he said then. But there is no doubt that Arbeit's attachment to the British team in Paris was a massive embarrassment to UK Athletics in particular and the sport as a whole. Without doubt Lewis has come under persuasive pressure to consider the relationship closed. The future role of Frank Dick, Lewis's head coach who recommended Arbeit, has yet to be clarified, but in the event that Van Commenee resumes his coaching responsibilities it is unlikely Dick would be required. "I cannot confirm what you are saying, but I have got only one incentive," Van Commenee said. "Medals." No shortage of medals attach to Arbeit's name, but it has been proved beyond doubt by files kept in the former East Germany by their secret police, the Stasi, that those medals were garnered by the cynical and systematic abuse of performance-enhancing drugs. The athletes, particularly women, who won medals under the regime he so zealously supported are still suffering ill-effects of the abuse. Arbeit, already banished from working with the governing bodies of athletics in Australia and South Africa, would have presented a problem to the British Olympic Association had he remained coach to Lewis. They would have been forced to decide whether or not to accredit him as a member of the British team. Lewis is not expected to make an immediate statement about her future. Asked whether it was time for two and two to make four instead of five, Van Commenee said: "People do hit the target now and again." Crucially, when one minus one becomes the official sum, the reputation of Britain's greatest female Olympian and British athletics as a whole will be greatly enhanced. Eamonn Condon [EMAIL PROTECTED]
