Early career breakthrough                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       John’s first major success came over 3000m when he set a new record to win the English Schools Championships in Hull, 1986. Remarkably, this record of 8:10.5 still stands over 30 years later despite several attempts to break it. Shortly afterwards, he won a bronze medal in the European Junior Championships in Cottbus over 3,000m and 10th in the World Juniors 5,000m in Athens in a personal best of 14:08, a race dominated by East Africans. Following these successes, John was offered and accepted a scholarship to attend Iowa State University in 1986. During this time there and after a difficult start with shin injuries he became one of the most successful British athletes to study in the USA. In 1986, he won the US national Junior cross country Championship in San Francisco and following this became the first British athlete ever to win the prestigious NCAA 10km Cross Country Division 1 Championship in Maryland, Carolina. He went on to become the most successful athlete in ISU history, winning 12 Conference titles becoming all-American on 5 occasions and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2005.

Senior career highlights                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        In times that were dominated by the East Africans John still enjoyed a succesful career. In 1991, shortly after graduating from University with degree in Business, he won his first senior national title over 3,000m in Sheffield. His most successful years were between 1994 – 1996. During this period he won a medal in a closely contested Commonwealth Games 5,000m race in Victoria in Canada in a time of 13:23, silver medal in the World Cup on home soil in London in front a capacity crowd and victory in the Olympic Trials in 1996 at capacity Alexander Stadium, Birmingham. He also won the prestigious English National Cross Country title in 1996 in Newark finsihing well ahead of the ‘field’. His PB’s of 13:16 for 5,000m and 7:36 for 3,000m meters still rank highly on the British All-Time Lists (12th and 4th respectively).                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

Coaching career                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 During his time as Performance Coach for British Athletics, John achieved notable success as a personal and team Coach. He Coached over 20 national champions in multiple events, 1 British record holder in the 3,000m steeple-chase,7 European medalists including 3 champions and several global finalists. Like his own success, John also coached several athletes that were ranked in the top 10 on the British All-Time list. Other notable successes were achieved as the Lead Endurance Coach at all the global championships including the 3 Olympic Games and 5 World Championships including London 2012 where Mo Farah won his first Olympic historic double gold. Furthermore, Great Britain began to dominate races in Europe particularly over cross country where, on more than one occasion, all the athletes on the team came home with medals. In 2011 and 2013, John was awarded the European Athletics Association award for coaching excellence.                                                             During his 3 years at Aspire Academy, the Qatar national under 20 team achieved it’s highest ever position in the medals table in the World Junior’s in Poland in 2016 – placing 9th. New staff and athletes were blended in an Academy with sports science to reach the best possible results in such a small country to optimize success. Staying in Qatar, John joins Liz to develop the exciting ‘DAC’ project with the hope of providing unique and exciting opportunities to athletes in Qatar with the hope that some more talent can be unlocked and share a similar journey in sport.