Charles van Commenee

Charles van Commenee, written in Dutch as van Commenée, (born 22 June 1958) is a Dutch athletics coach. He began his professional career as a technical director with the Dutch athletics federation before moving to take up a similar role for the British athletics team in 2001. After a term as Performance Director for the Dutch Olympic Committee, he served as Head Coach of British Athletics from 2008 to 2012. Additionally, he has personally coached athletes to international medals, including Denise Lewis, Kelly Sotherton and Huang Zhihong.

Early career Charles van Commenee was born in Amsterdam, Holland, the son of Otto (a heavy industry worker) and Ineke (a woman of Indo Eurasian heritage). He grew up in Osdorp, a borough of the city, and from an early age he was instilled with a strong work ethic. As a young man he was interested in athletics, competing in the decathlon at club level, but several injuries forced him to give up the sport. After completing his military service in 1981, he dedicated himself to coaching full-time and in 1987 he was appointed as the coach for the Dutch javelin team. Building upon his coaching success, in 1992 he was promoted to technical director of combined events and throws by the Dutch athletics federation. He took on other coaching responsibilities, including a brief stay in China where he met shot put thrower Huang Zhihong. He began coaching her in 1993 and at the 1995 World Championships she took the silver medal.

The coach showed his stubborn and determined temperament when in 1996 he withdrew from managing the Dutch Olympic team because he felt that one of his trainees, Sharon Jaklofsky, was receiving unfair treatment. His trip to the 1996 Atlanta Olympics was self-funded and he took Jaklofsky out of the Dutch camp for training every day. She reached the finals of the competition but faulted three times, failing to record a mark. At the 2000 Sydney Olympics she took the gold in the heptathlon, becoming the first of Van Commenee's charges to win an Olympic gold medal. Following his success with Lewis, in 2001 he was appointed by UK Athletics as the technical director for the jumps and combined events. After a successful period in the Netherlands, where he took them to their second-highest ever Olympic medal tally at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, he returned to the UK to take up the position of national head coach from September 2008.

Charles van Commenee stepped down as UK Athletics head coach after the team failed to meet his medal target at the 2012 Olympics in London.