Olympic long jump champion Greg Rutherford criticizes lack of British flag on
“It’s not about taking the Union flag off the kit – the logo is still on the shorts and socks”, De Vos told the Guardian. “And one thing we learned from 2012 was that people got behind Team GB – it’s the team that has the emotion not the event – and as we gear up to hosting the world championships in London 2017 we wanted a kit that had British Athletics on it”.
Olympic long jump champion Greg Rutherford has criticized of the lack of British flag on the team’s world championships kit.
British Athletics did not respond directly to Rutherford but did retweet an Instagram post from hurdler Cindy Ofili, who recently followed her sister Tiffany Porter in switching allegiance from the United States to Great Britain.
“Most annoyingly about all this is that the kit itself is fantastic – in my opinion it is the best kit to compete in material-wise”. “To be fair when I step on that line I run for my country not my federation”.
The athletics kit for the upcoming competition in Beijing is a mostly blue jersey featuring the words “Great Britain” and the British Athletics and Nike logos on a large white “V” at the top. Doesn’t make any sense! “Thanks britishathletics”. Bring back the flag”, adding during a radio interview, “I think it’s a little bit disappointing to see the flag is absent from the kit.
Dame Kelly, a double Olympic champion at Athens in 2004, said: “Totally agree”.
Paralympic shot-putter Sam Ruddock joined in the condemnation, in another post which was retweeted by Rutherford.
The kit that she had laid out appeared to have several items that sported Union Jack flags.
“The inclusion of the British Athletics team name and logo is to help create a strong team identity for the British Athletics team”.
The World Championships kick off in Beijing on August 22.