“Firstly we must generate more competition internally, so it’s tougher to make the team. If we do that, by the time you get to an Olympics, you’ve had to fight your way to get on.
“That’s the major thing: raising the standards we ask of athletes to make it through all the way. We’ve got to do that, otherwise we are just participants. We want to become winners.”
There is a marked contrast between last week’s US Championships, where world-class skaters were left sidelined, external through their sheer depth of talent, and a British Championships in November which essentially formed a parade for a British team that had long been known.
Jenna McCorkell, who will skate in the women’s event at Sochi 2014 and this week’s European Championships, has won each of the past 11 British titles.
That suggests a lack of top-class competition – which is, of course, hardly McCorkell’s fault. But she will retire after Sochi and her successor is not immediately apparent.
“We need a big push on our youngsters,” says Sellwood. “We’re looking at 2018 and 2022 in terms of what we’ve got. We know we’ve got some good ones in the pipelines – Amani Fancy and Chris Boyadji are skating well, they showed a glimpse of what might be coming through.”
Oman-born Fancy and former France competitor Boyadji are enjoying a successful first season together, unseating Stacey Kemp and David King as the British senior pairs champions. Both duos will compete at the Euros, with Kemp and King heading to Sochi.
Across the Atlantic you will find 16-year-old Olivia Smart and Joseph Buckland – the 21-year-old younger brother of Nick.
Smart abandoned her GCSEs to leave the UK and dedicate her life to training in the United States, where time on the ice is much easier to come by than in Britain’s few and congested rinks, and where many of the world’s top coaches reside.
Coomes and Buckland made a similar decision before them, as did Kemp and King.
Sellwood recognises this transatlantic drain as a long-term issue facing British figure skating. He would rather they stayed in the UK, but how do you turn that around?
“We need to set up national centres within this country,” he says, “bringing the best experts in from around the world and developing within this country.
“Investing in one coach gets four or five generations of athletes. If you invest in just the athletes? One generation.
