400mH specialist Dai Greene is to leave his coach Malcolm Arnold after five years based in Bath.
Under Arnold’s tutorship, Greene grabbed gold at the 2010 Commonwealth Games and 2011 European and World Championships but since his win in Daegu the Welshman has suffered a long string of injuries.
Despite this, he was able to go second on the British all-time list in 2012 with his 47.84 in the Paris Diamond League and finished fourth in the London 2012 Olympics, running 48.24 in the final – still 0.02 seconds faster than the time he needed to win the world title a year earlier.
But 2013 and 2014 have seen Greene finish 5th in the semi-finals of the 2013 IAAF World Championships and lose his Commonwealth title earlier this year, finishing 4th in his heat with a 50.36 clocking.
“I could do with a change of scene so at the moment I’m in search of a new coach,” Greene told Sport Wales.
“I’ve been in Bath for around five years and I feel that the last couple of years haven’t gone my way.
“It can be a little bit depressing going to training when you’re the only guy injured and training on his own.
“[I’m] getting great support from the people at British Athletics and I’m sure I’ll find something in the next couple of weeks – there’s plenty of things going on behind the scenes.”
Despite deciding to move on, Greene paid tribute to Arnold, the senior performance coach for UK Athletics.
“Malcolm and I have had a good run at things, I’ve learned so much under his tutelage and if it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t be sitting here, I wouldn’t be being interviewed [and] I wouldn’t have had the medals I have won” he said.
“So I’ll be forever grateful to him for what we managed to achieve.”
“Malcolm is very professional and more than happy to help me in my transition period between coaches,” added Greene.
“I’ll be more than happy to work with him. He’s been a great guy and a lot of what I’ve learned from training [with him], that’s what I’ll be putting into my new programme with whoever that is.”
Greene’s departure follows less than a year on from training partner Jack Green’s decision to leave the group, with Green now opting to move to America to train with LaShawn Merritt in Florida.
“It was mainly the change of location for me that was the driving factor, the need to have more people around me at an elite level, especially when I’ve had lots of injuries” said the former European Champion.
“It’s easier to overcome them when you’re surrounded by more athletes.”
