The sisters have seized the opportunity to stay in the British capital and work alongside coach Tony Lester as they aim to build the UK’s premier sprint group.
Losing the amount of air miles they’ve accumulated over the years, Lavia and Lina Nielsen are relieved to be home with a new aspiration; helping their coach Tony Lester build Britain’s best sprint group.
As early as 2021, after the Tokyo Olympics, their overseas ventures began; not by choice, but as they see fit.
“I knew I had to step it up, but I couldn’t find a coach that was a good fit or training partners,” explains Lavay be an option.”
There were stints in Florida, Austria and Denmark, but after a 2024 season in which they both claimed Olympic 4x400m bronze medals, they jumped at the chance to return to London this autumn.
GB Women’s 4x400m Team in Paris (River)
The sisters were initially reluctant to leave their home country but felt they had few options.Of the five British sprinters (100m-400m) announced earlier this month for UK Athletics’ top-level funding, the Nielsens are training abroad and Lester think it speaks volumes for athletics training in Britain and they want to do something about it.
“I think we have a lack of coaching in the UK, especially in sprints,” says Lavia.
It was this lack that initially prompted the move abroad and then led them to their current coach in Aarhus, Denmark.
Lester knows a thing or two about his craft, having helped the likes of Roger Black, Mark Richardson, Abi Oyepitan, Tim Benjamin and Marlon Devonish compete on the world stage during his 14 years in UK Athletics A series of disagreements with combative head coach Charles van Komene forced him to leave in athletics before he returned to work for the German and Danish national federations.
He is now set to travel to Brunel in west London, where he hopes to fill the void of British sprinters looking for a world-class group at home.
Five Olympians are on board so far, with Great Britain’s relay athletes Ama Pippi and Nicklas Baker joining the Nielsen twins and Ireland’s Charlene Maudsley, with the door always open for further additions.
Charlene Maudsley (Getty)
Lester, like the Nielsens, does not believe that sprint training is currently up to the standards required in Britain.He blames the governing bodies, not the coaches.
“Britain can’t afford to support coaches,” he says. “Even when I was a coach, we never had coaching. So how do we improve our coaches and we need to send trainers to workshops all over Europe.
“All the money has been spent elsewhere and I think it’s unfair because our coaches are being judged as insane when they’re not. I just don’t think they’re getting enough support from the people in charge, be it UK Athletics, UK Sport, or whoever?
“So the athletes are coming through the system and doing the same thing they did 15 years ago. I’m not going to sit down and dismiss the British coaches, I’m looking around and thinking: “Who is there that is a really good coach?” I don’t know.
“Why are Daryl Neita and Jeremiah Azu in Italy? Why did these guys (the Nielsens) go to Austria? Why are so many guys going to America?”
Tony Lester (Getty)
Lester started coaching the twins after a chance meeting with Lina in the hotel lobby of the Lausanne Diamond League 2023. “We always laugh because it took her three days to reply to my text, which made us think we weren’t good enough for her.” says Lina.
Both sisters beat personal bests in her first year in charge, and their bond suddenly grew closer when she suffered a worrying cardiac arrest during training in Denmark exactly a week before the European Championships.
“It was a very lucky day that there were so many people on the track,” recalls Lavay. “There was a doctor on the spot very quickly, so his life was saved very quickly.”
Lester adds: “If I was alone, I wouldn’t be here talking to you now.”
The addition of a new pacemaker has left him feeling “bulletproof,” but the episode was one of the catalysts for him to return to his family at home and try to build an elite group around the Nielsens.
GB Women’s 4x400m Team (Getty)
“We want to emulate what the sprint coaches are doing in the U.S. and build a really good group in the U.K. The only other similar group I can think of is Trevor Painter’s group, but that’s middle distance That’s what we want to create in London.”
The artist and his wife Jenny Meadows have become standard bearers in the British coaching scene after seeing their M11 Track Club go from strength to strength with Keely Hodgkinson, Georgia Bell and Lewis Davy all winning medals at the Paris Olympics.
“I’ve known Trevor forever and he’s done a great job,” Lester says. “But he’s had to work hard to get to this level. It hasn’t been easy. I’ve been very lucky because I’ve been with UK Athletics for 14 years. Trevor hasn’t even been hired by UK Athletics, so he’s done a great job.”
As his athletes, old and new, make their way to their new west London home in the coming weeks, Leicester is set to step down from his role in Denmark before embarking on his new step into the unknown at the start of January. Success is the initial goal for him and the Nielsens, but it could have much wider implications for British sprinting.
» This feature first appeared in the November issue of AW magazine. Subscribe to AW Magazine herecheck out our new podcast! here or subscribe to our digital archive of back issues from 1945 to the present day here
The post Lavia and Lina Nielsen on why they want to train in London appeared first AW:.
