This follows directly from entrants and medals by country group, which found GBR's overall Olympic/World medal-conversion rate has generally matched or beaten the European average since 2000 - a result that, taken alone, doesn't obviously support the idea that a stricter selection policy is costing medals. But two other pages on this site point at a more specific place to look: field event medallists are older on average than track medallists at Olympic/World level (ages of medallists), and arrive with more prior European Championships experience (area championships before a first global medal). If UK Athletics' selection policy denies qualified field athletes the European Championships experience that data suggests they typically need, the effect should show up specifically in the field half of the entrants and medals - not necessarily in the combined total.
This page splits every entrant and every medal into track or field (jumps, throws and the combined events, which count as field - see the events list below), and asks: does the UK send a smaller share of field entrants than other European countries, and does it win a smaller share of field medals? It also checks whether the same pattern is already visible at U20 level, where it would show up before selection for the senior team is even a factor.
GBR's conversion improvement is entirely a track phenomenon. Field's presence in the team has been shrinking on both measures: its entrant share has fallen from 30.9% in 2000-2003 to 27.9% in 2020-2023 to 19.9% in the current period (2024-2027), and its medal share swung from 33.3% in 2016-2019 to just 12.5% and 15.0% in the two periods since. Splitting GBR's medals-per-entrant by track and field shows why: in 2016-2019 the two halves converted at almost the same rate, 10.0% track against 13.6% field. Since then track has risen to 15.1% and 13.6%, while field has fallen to 5.6% and 9.7%. So the headline conversion figure that has kept GBR at or above the European average is being produced by one half of the team. The field half is sending fewer athletes and converting a smaller proportion of the ones it does send.
The field numbers are small - 3 medals from 31 entrants in the current period - and the current period is incomplete, so this is a direction rather than a precise measurement. But it holds across two consecutive periods and the gap between the two halves is wide.
GBR's overall medal-conversion rate has not been declining. The previous page found it has held at an elevated level since 2008 (10.9-17.4% combined, 5.3-10.8% at Olympic/World level) rather than falling away - not a clean "relentless increase" period to period, but sustained and, in most periods, at or above the European average (GBR at or above Europe's Olympic/World rate in 4 of the last 7 four-year periods since 2000).
That has coincided with a widening gap in who gets sent to field events, at senior level. Field events (including the combined events, which count as field throughout this page) have been 45-53% of Europe's senior entrants in every period since 2000; GBR's has been consistently lower (20-31%) and the gap has widened - from around 19.9 points behind in 2000-2003 to around 25.3 points behind in the current period (2024-2027).
And field is specifically where Europe is strong. Because Europeans are comparatively more competitive in jumps, throws and combined events than in the sprints and distance events where North American, Caribbean and East African athletes take a large share of medals, field events made up 62-79% of the medals Europe's tracked countries won at Olympic/World level in every period since 2000. GBR's Olympic/World field-medal share has been below Europe's throughout, and has fallen sharply in the two most recent periods: 13% (2020-2023) and 20% (2024-2027), against a European share still above 62% in both.
The entrant-share gap is already visible at U20 level - and so is the same selection approach. GBR has sent a smaller field-entrant share than Europe at U20 Championships in every period since 2000 (29-38% vs 40-52%), including 29% vs 40% in the current period (2024-2027). GBR's U20 field-medal share (8-27%) has also been well below Europe's (54-57%) throughout.
That pattern starting earlier than senior selection does not mean senior selection is irrelevant, because UK Athletics applies a comparable and in some respects stricter approach at age-group level. Its U20 selection policies set a UKA qualification standard above the World Athletics entry standard, cap team size explicitly for "logistical or budgetary reasons", decline to pass an unclaimed automatic place to the next athlete, and carry no right of appeal at all. Page 8 sets out the detail.
So the junior and senior patterns are more plausibly two applications of one approach than two separate causes.
Field events are also where pages 3 and 4 found the longest development window. Field medallists are older on average than track medallists at Olympic/World level, and arrive with more prior European Championships experience. A selection approach that narrows entry earlier or more strictly would be expected to bite hardest exactly where it has: field events that need the most time to mature.
This is a consistent pattern across four independent data cuts (senior entrant share, senior medal share, U20 entrant/medal share, and development-window data from other pages), corroborated by England Athletics' own Field Events Review (May 2025, cited below). It does not on its own prove that selection policy caused the shrinking field presence rather than, say, the coaching and facilities pressures that review separately identifies - the two are plausibly intertwined rather than fully separable causes, and the U20 pattern suggests the pipeline problem predates and extends beyond whatever is happening at senior selection specifically.
Events included - this database holds individual track and field events plus the combined events; nothing else (see Reproducibility below for how the data is gathered):
Country, entrant and medal definitions, and country groups, are as described on the entrants and medals by country group page.
Senior and U20 championships are both available via the scope selector above the chart - European Championships, Olympic/World Championships, European U20 Championships and World U20 Championships, individually or combined. U20 is included so the same entrant/medal split can be checked earlier in development, before senior selection decisions are even a factor.
The chart shows the share of a country's entrants (or medals) that came from field events - not raw counts - so that countries with bigger or smaller overall teams remain comparable. Field events are a minority of the Olympic programme by medal count (18 of the 42 individual/combined medal events, 43%, per England Athletics' own Field Events Review, cited below) - but that is not the relevant baseline here. Europe as a whole is comparatively stronger in field events than in the sprints and distance events, where North American, Caribbean and East African athletes take a large share of medals - so field events have actually made up the majority of the medals Europe's tracked countries won at Olympic/World level in every period since 2000 (62-79%), even though Europe's entrants split closer to evenly (45-53% field). Europe's own medal record, not a 50/50 split of the programme, is the fair comparison for GBR.
Decathlon/Heptathlon entrants and medals are counted as field (see events list above) but also broken out separately in the table's "of which Combined" column, so it's visible when a country's field total is being carried by its combined-event athletes rather than by jumpers or throwers - e.g. France's only O+W medals in 2020-2023 were Kevin Mayer's Combined silver (Tokyo 2021) and gold (Worlds 2022).
The four-year periods do not contain equal numbers of championships. 2016-2019 contains roughly five, 2020-2023 roughly four, and 2024-2027 three, with that period only around two-thirds elapsed. Shares and conversion rates are comparable across periods. Absolute entrant and medal counts are not, and are used here for illustration rather than as a trend.