University of Birmingham Sport (UBSport) Sport Development Manager and triple Olympian Christina Boxer, has been appointed as the Chair for the Birmingham McCain Athletics Network.

The McCain Athletics Networks are clusters of athletics clubs throughout the UK who work strategically together to improve the quality of coaching, links with the local community and develop the all round quality of provision of the clubs within their network.

Christina will now balance her role at UBSport with supporting Keith Holt, the Network Co-ordinator, to bring together the work initiated by four local athletic clubs: Birchfield Harriers, Sutton Coldfield AC, University of Birmingham and BRATS, with more clubs set to join the network in the future.

Christina said: ‘It is an honour to be elected as the Chair at this exciting time for athletics and to be able to represent the collective voice of the clubs within the Birmingham Network. I am impressed with the plans the clubs have for the local community which will benefit participants of all ages, volunteers and coaches, and I am really looking forward to further raising the profile of athletics within the city of Birmingham.’

Christina will bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the role of Chair that she has gained from competing in athletics at the highest level, coaching, and her work as a sports development professional. Christina competed in three successive Olympics, Moscow 1980, Los Angeles 1984 where she reached the final and finished 6th before finishing 4th in the 1500m with a time of 4:00.64 at the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games.

In the 1982 Commonwealth Games in Brisbane Christina brought home Gold for England in the 1500m following this up with silver in the same event at the 1990 Commonwealth games in Auckland. She also became the first British woman to run 800m in under 2 minutes with a time of 1:59.05 in Turin 1979.