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MASTERS ATHLETICS 2014.
any major breaks or tears. During the session the voting for
the claim to be proven went back up to 69%.
The Judge then retired for about 30 minutes to arrive at his
verdict.
The final vote from us the gallery, went back up to 73% very
close to our original 75% vote. We all stood up for the
Judges return. He clinically went through the issues, firstly,
unfortunately injuries happen whether you are a volunteer or
not. The Claimant wasn’t an employee and pay wasn’t a
motivation. Obviously there was a hole in the net, but there
was no evidence of negligence. The village club was not a
professional club it was run by amateurs and they did have a
risk assessment in place, although the club should have
given more training to its staff.
He therefore rejected the claim with costs only by policy.
What really convinced the judge, emphasised in his summing
up, were the recorded details of the “Net Assessment Log”.
By keeping this log up to date, this amateur club had taken
the correct steps on its safety procedure and therefore
helped to reduce its risks within this accident.
Attending this trial, plus the day’s proceedings, was a real
eye-opener to the fact that clubs should be fully insured and
all risks assessed to cover those unexpected accidents.
Should any claim or accidents need to be decided in a civil
court, the proceedings could be a very traumatic experience
for any club secretary or member. A court attendance and
the involvement of rigorous questioning from professional
Barristers, is a very daunting scenario. Civil cases are
decided by a Judges verdict that can easily go either way.
Within the structure of the 35 different sports attending, each
had different requirements of insurance cover. Many of the
sports attending the trial were seeking further cover and
advice from the sports insurers in attendance at the trial. We
in athletics are covered by a policy from our governing body,
UKA. All our paid up affiliated athletic clubs are covered by
the UKA Insurance scheme, which basically covers training,
competition and travel to these events. It is only a basic
cover and its full wording can be found on the UKA website,
it covers a few different roles within its description (officials,
athletes clubs etc.). It would be prudent for all club members,
to prompt their committees to review this policy to assess
whether or not they have adequate cover for their particular
club needs. Obviously, the stadium based clubs, due to the
amount of activity, (especially during training nights) have a
higher risk than the road and harrier type clubs.
The lesson from the trial is to make sure that your club needs
are fully covered by adequate insurance and that you adopt
and practise a regular risk assessment for your club
activities.
Dorothy Tyler, who has died aged 94, was one of Britain's
foremost athletes of the 20th century. Tyler, was the only
female athlete to win Olympic medals either side of the
Second World War.
She was Britain's first individual Olympic medallist in
women's athletics, she set a high jump world record that was
not ratified for nearly 20 years, and also won gold medals in
the Empire (now Commonwealth) Games 12 years apart,
she was the first British woman to hold the qualifications to
coach male athletes.
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Dorothy Jennifer Beatrice
Tyler, high jumper and coach,
born 14 March 14 1920; died
25 September 2014
Her earliest successes were achieved under her maiden
name, Dorothy Odam. She was born in south London and
spent all her life in the Croydon area.
When Dorothy won a schools contest, the prize was
membership of Mitcham Athletics Club. She taught herself
how to do the high jump, and was a good all-rounder who
also competed in the javelin, 80m hurdles, and long jump in
the Empire Games. One of her regrets was that she had no
formal coaching until she was 28, when Arthur Gold, the
international high jumper who would later become chairman
of the British Olympic Association, took her on.
In 1936 Tyler, then aged 16, was one of 13 British female
athletes, in the team for the Berlin Olympics. She met Hitler
at a lavish function for female competitors and later recalled
him as "a small man in a large uniform
In the Olympic Stadium Tyler was first to clear 1.60m.
Nobody went higher in an exciting contest watched by
80,000. She lost, though, in a jump-off against the Hungarian
Ibolya Csák: under today's rules she would have won, having
been first to clear the height.
The rules were changed before the next Olympics, in London
in 1948, when Tyler again finished second. This time, had
the prewar rules still been in place, she would have won gold
rather than silver.
She never complained, stating: "The rules are the rules."
Two years after the Olympics, Tyler sailed to Sydney with the
England team for the Empire Games. On the final day of
competition she won the high jump, becoming the athletics
team's only female gold medallist.
In 1939 she set a world record of 1.66m, at Brentwood,
Essex, though it was not officially recognised until 1957, the
year she retired from competition, aged 37. The German who
had jumped 1.67m a few months before Tyler's effort, Dora
Ratjen, was in fact a man.
In 2001 Tyler was awarded an MBE. In 2012, she was the
official starter for the London Marathon.
We are sorry to hear that Bill Guy died in October of this
year.