After helping build a strong track team in Canada, Kevin Tyler announced after the Beijing Olympics that he was leaving Edmonton and taking a job with U.K. Athletics.

The personal coach to 2008 IAAF world indoor 400-metre champion Tyler Christopher; Adam Kunkel (a 400m hurdles finalist at the 2007 IAAF world championships), Olympic 400m semifinalist Carline Muir, 2008 Canadian Olympic trials 100m winner Pierre Brown and Canadian Olympic sprint relay team member Emmanuel Paris caught many off guard. Some were stunned.

Tyler was in Berlin for this year's world track and field championships, in his role as U.K. Athletics' strategic head of coaching development.

He has heard the whispers about how his leaving has been viewed at home. None of his former charges qualified in individual events for the world championships. But his was a decision in his family's best interests.

"It's not like you plan for these things because, in any position I have been in, I have never seen the next position coming," he said outside the Berlin Olympic stadium Sunday. "I really wrestled with this one. It was six or eight months that I was wrestling with this decision.

"I know how Carline and the athletes feel, I had my life into those guys. I completely understand that. But at the same time I have to weigh the benefits for my family."

Personal investment

Tyler founded the Canadian Athletics Coaching Centre in Edmonton and, in addition to coaching the aforementioned elite athletes, was heavily involved in marketing for the centre.

"I was working very hard at a whole number of levels to keep that group functioning and moving forward," he explained, "and it takes a lot of personal investment. My personal experience is that it takes a certain mindset to hold together a world-class group of sprinters.

"That alone is a full-time job and yet I was also doing administration and marketing — and then media requests were coming in, two a day. That was a tremendous load for any one person."

He has been following closely the progress of the Canadian athletes he coached, although he has not had much contact with them since moving to Britain.

"It's disappointing. You worked that hard to build something, then it goes in a direction other than what you would like to see. I care about all those athletes, greatly. Even Pierre (Brown), I only worked with him for a year. We used to say 'We should have started this five years ago' because of the amount of improvement we saw."

It is easy to see how the athletes could feel abandoned. To top it off, the coach who took over control of the group once Tyler had left, Derek Evely, has also signed a contract with U.K. Athletics.

British athletics receives a lot of funding to ensure there will be success at the London 2012 Olympics. But, according to Tyler, there's more to the coaching defections.

"I don't think it's just a financial thing," Tyler said. "But I think the finances, over the long term, impact what sport looks like. The culture in the U.K., around athletics, is very different from what it is in Canada."

Praise for Athletics Canada

Despite leaving for what seem to be greener pastures, Tyler has nothing but good things to say about Athletics Canada and the support he received from the organization. Though he went into the private sector for funding to keep the Canadian centre going, he did receive about a third of his annual budget from Athletics Canada.

"Athletics Canada is doing the best they can with what they have. I have no issue with their level of support," he declares.

"I went into that (Edmonton) centre. Nobody got me into that centre, I took it on myself. I don't blame anybody for the amount of work I was doing. But there comes a time, you have a young family and you look at where you are going with your career."

Uprooting his young family was one of the difficulties. But it seems Canada's loss will be Britain's long-term gain.