SIR CLIVE WOODWARD (pictured) has failed to impress Chris Boardman with a single idea to improve Britain's chances in the 2012 Olympics, the 1992 gold medal-winning cyclist told an influential group of politicians today.


Woodward, who led the England rugby union team to World Cup glory four years ago, is 14 months into a new role as the British Olympic Association's (BOA) director of elite performance.

 

His mission is to come up with ways to help the Britain team finish at least fourth in the medal table in 2012, when the Olympics will be held in London.

 

But Boardman, now part of the coaching set-up at British Cycling which produced six senior world champions this year, said: "We were one of the first sports to invite him along.

 

"He spent some time with us and had a look around.

 

"But at this time we don't see anything he has to offer cycling that we are not already getting.

 

"He didn't offer us anything we were not already in receipt of."

 

It is not the first time Woodward has encountered indifference from coaches who have questioned his worth outside the world of rugby union.

 

Indeed, Woodward had a short-lived spell in professional football three years ago with Southampton, where he was hired by then-chairman Rupert Lowe but shunned by then-manager Harry Redknapp.

 

The BOA's recruitment of Woodward had also been a controversial move as the role he was given was seen by some as duplicating that of UK Sport, the Government-backed organisation that funds elite sportsmen and women to the tune of more than £100 million a year.

 

UK Athletics chairman Ed Warner told the committee he was aware that Woodward was a "political hot potato" and indicated that the rugby man, who has just recruited 10 specialist coaches, including Jonny Wilkinson's goal-kicking guru, had yet to make an impression in the world of track and field.

 

He said: "He has not had any impact in UK athletics yet.

 

"He is also a political hot potato and my concern for athletics is the risk that we have caught the backlash of two organisations with rival programmes.

 

"To my mind it is not about the BOA controlling athletics, it is about individual sports having their own programmes. We have got to leave the individual sports to get on and run themselves.

 

"Ultimately it has to be about what the performance director of each sport believes in and they must stand and fall by that. We are determined not to be dictated to."