Muir and Reekie have falling out with Andy Young, get on first plane home from South Africa

Possible reunion with GDS in Vancouver?

Here's a link to the story in the times by Matt Lawton and Rick Broadbent (requires subscription). Muir has been with Young since 2011.

thetimes.co.uk

Laura Muir and Jemma Reekie fly home from training camp after falling out with coach

Matt Lawton, Rick Broadbent

The Olympic silver-medal winner Laura Muir and her GB team-mate Jemma Reekie have flown home from a training camp in South Africa after falling out with their

Link:www.thetimes.co.uk/article/laura-muir-...

Hasn't gone very well for GDS since going to Canada.

Wow, this is huge. Young's training is quite specific and happened to suit Muir extremely well. According to her, it's very low mileage but even "easy" days are ran at what most would consider to be a strong pace (I think she said 6 min/mile). That kind of training philosophy doesn't seem very widespread, she might struggle to find a similar style of coach.

For both Reekie and Muir to leave suggests the problem is to do with Young. Not ideal for one Britain's few medal hopes on the track

It takes a lot for a couple athletes to immediately leave a coach.

Hmmmmmmm........

People grow apart. The best coaches become like another family member. Almost like a marriage and 50% of those end in divorce.
Coaches take athletes for granted and athletes do the same with coaches.
The problem with any divorce is that the athletes always feel like they need to go public with their stories and this means we are only hearing one side of the story.

Does growing apart typically follow a pattern of travelling to South Africa and what appears to be jumping on the first flight out?

Comes across as something specific occurred rather than any "growing apart".

I think we all know where this is going, super unfortunate. Don’t know anything about the coach but take every article about Kara and replace it with Laura and I bet that is where this ends.

I hope that it is strictly a business decision for all sides and not drug or “toxic” situation related

Well there’re a couple options. One is that she could take over her own training. That works for some athletes, but it is risky and tricky. Alternately she can link up with a coach with a more flexible approach/advisory type role. You could say this is where Jakob/Woody are at with Henrik and Mike Smith respectively. If she’s looking for a similar program with her not playing a huge role in the training it could get complicated to find a UK-based coach able to work with Nike who is a strong fit.

Yeah the immediacy of this Carrie’s bad implications. It doesn’t sound like a simple “athlete moves on from longtime coach” scenario.

Not super surprised, just disappointed. Stafford was the most high profile departure but as far as I know all the u23/u20 GB athletes who had worked with Young have left his group in the last 2 years. From a local Scottish standpoint that group used to have a fistful of really promising young athletes who many thought would go on to be the "next generation" of Scottish middle distance runners but one by one they left with a lot of toxic sounding speculation going round the Scottish Athletics community about it too.

Young told BBC Scotland: "There was no bust-up. I think you would find the girls were worried about my health if you spoke to them.
"Felt I wasn't looking after myself properly, maybe thought pressure was getting to me. I'd say they were reading too much into it."

bbc.com

Muir & Reekie quit training camp unexpectedly

Laura Muir and Jemma Reekie have unexpectedly cut short their altitude training camp, leaving long-term coach Andy Young in South Africa.

Link:www.bbc.com/sport/athletics/65119499

So the two women went to South Africa only to abruptly leave because they were worried about the guy's health?

Methinks this one jusssst a bit of a stretch.

I mean just reading this article does it not seem like he had a few too many, a few too many times to relieve stress (or maybe there's a level of addiction involved). His quotes kinda give the "yeah I might let myself go and drank too much, got hung over for practice, but I'm fine and there're overreacting" vibes. Or alternatively something around panic attacks and that sort of thing, though it would seem callous to just leave him there if it was something like that.

"Worried about his health" is a pretty common euphemism. Given that Young responded that they were blowing it out of proportion, I can take a pretty good guess at what has prompted their departure - and no, I don't think it's a Goucher/Salazar situation. I think this is all about Young. Most likely, it's about alcohol.

Muir could coach herself I suppose, though she has been so closely mentored by Young it would be a big departure. Reekie will need more structure. There's the Painter/Meadows group but would they want to potentially disrupt the group that's getting so much or of Hodgkinson? Geoff Wightman could also be a solution. He seems to be accommodating to low mileage training - Muir and Wightman often have similar beats to their seasons as well.

There's a "get away from this guy quickly" vibe to the whole thing which seems to reach beyond worried about his health, drinking issues or panic attacks.

They're both veterans with tons of experience. They'll be fine without a coach.

Yep, that's my suspicion too. Given the regular departures from the group, I suspect there's a real problem, but he's 'functional'. On this occasion, though, I wonder if he has said/attempted something inappropriate, maybe with Reekie, under the influence and Muir, who is very close to Reekie has simply said, right, we're gone.

I can't really imagine even just being drunk too often would lead to such a swift and final exit. Some specific incident must have occurred, and I think the pair are more likely to leave together if it happened to the younger, more vulnerable Reekie. Muir would have the clout to take a stand on her behalf, I'm not sure Reekie could have if it happened to Muir.

Looking forward, this will be a blow to Muir - she seemed uniquely suited to his coaching style, in a way, frankly, no-one else is. It may well be a blessing for Reekie, who is very talented, clearly, doing almost Hodgkinson style things at age -grade before Keely did, but whose form has fallen off a cliff under this coach. GBR W800 is too deep to risk that much going on much longer anyway.