Mark Brown finished second in the UKA "European Championship Trials" two weeks ago, but has been overlooked for even a relay spot in the team travelling to Venice this weekend.
Against coaching advice he declined an invitation to run in a subsequent meeting on Birmingham's notoriously fat National indoor Arena track, and watched all his rivals run faster than his trials silver medal-winning performance.
Coach John Powell said: "Mark should have run at Birmingham, but he was a little puzzled as to why a silver medallist was being offered a B race. Consequently everyone else filled their boots, and ran season's best times. The only slightly irritating issue is that UKA will never say that selection is dependant on another meeting. Calling their championships a 'trials' meeting is deceptive.
"They don't help themselves and some people could be forgiven for thinking that there is some funny business going on with selection. This happens every year. All UKA would have to do is make it clear that the trials are not the be-all and end-all, and athletes would have a clear picture of exactly what they have to do, rather than sit on a performance which, on the face of it at Sheffield, should have guaranteed Mark a place in Venice."
Meanwhile, some Trackspeed1 athletes have hit a rocky start to the final phase of winter training, with three hamstring injuries, all of which John Powell says were completely preventable.
"Tom Bensted repeated his injury of last year, which means his winter has been ravaged with problems, although he's not actually in bad shape," said Powell. But he along with others have to look carefully at lifestyle, warm-up and warm-down if repetitions are to be avoided.
"Jason Hussain ran against coaching advice in the Sussex County Championships at Sutton on Saturday (28th Feb) and pulled his hamstring. I feel for him, I really do after all he has been through this last 9 months, but if advice isn't taken there's little you can do. Jack Miller is back in training after another hamstring issue which again stemmed from over-zealous activities in training.
"Overall the squad are in good shape though," Powell concluded, " and we are certainly looking forward to some seriously good results this summer."
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