To the thousands roaring from the grandstands at Alexander Stadium, championship athletics is an explosive blur of lights, music and raw speed. But long before an athlete steps under the stadium floodlights, they must survive a hidden, high-stakes psychological obstacle course that television cameras never capture.
Guiding an exclusive, behind-the-scenes ‘Insider Tour’ through the stadium’s inner sanctum, former world and European sprint champion and now Great Britain relay coach Richard Kilty peeled back the curtain on the intense, ritualistic journey athletes undergo before the starter's gun fires.
Part of European Athletics’ commitment to bringing key stakeholders, partners and guests closer to the heart of the sport, the European Athletics Insider Tours convey the high-pressure world of elite competition through the eyes of those who have lived it at the highest level.
Controlled chaos and a surprise guest
Our journey – which was for the benefit of family members of European Athletics Official Partner Joma – began outside on the warm-up track, where at busy times between 600 and 700 athletes, coaches, doctors and physiotherapists converge in a frantic hive of physical preparation.
“It can be very, very hectic, and very eventful,” Kilty explains. With only eight lanes and dozens of athletes vying to practise, the atmosphere carries an unmistakable edge. “You have athletes practising starts, coaches arguing, intense national rivalries and sometimes people almost coming to blows,” Kilty says. “It can be incredibly tense, yet right next to it, other teams are laughing and bonding.”
The tour even experienced a taste of global track-and-field royalty when pole vault phenomenon Mondo Duplantis crossed paths with the group mid-warmup, stopping to pose for a photograph with members of the Joma family. “He’s one of the biggest stars in world sport, but so humble,” Kilty smiled, reminiscing about their days as roommates at an indoor meeting in Belgrade playing Call of Duty between sessions. “His warm-up looks just like a sprinter’s: drills, stretching, pure velocity.”
The “Room of Doom”
If the warm-up area is physical, the next stop is pure psychological warfare: the Call Room, or the Room of Doom as Colin Jackson describes it. Strict schedules dictate the exact minute an athlete must report. Miss the window by five seconds and you face disqualification. Once past the threshold, all contact with the outside world is severed. No phones, no coaches, no music. Just eight rivals confined to a tiny, five-by-five-metre space for up to 35 minutes while officials inspect bibs, shoes and spikes.
“If you look back at history, the Romans kept the gladiators in small holding areas beside the Colosseum before they entered the arena,” says Kilty. “The Call Room is our version of that. When I take people on this tour, they are completely mesmerised to learn that eight rivals sit cramped in a room the size of a shed for 35 minutes before a race.
“I’ve seen athletes look invincible outside, full of confidence with their coach,” he adds. “Then they sit in this quiet room for 20 minutes, looking at their opponents, and doubt starts creeping in. Some athletes try to intimidate, others sit quietly with their thoughts. Usain Bolt used to sing and dance! I used to thrive on that tension, but for many it’s where the race is lost before they even step outside.”
The gladiator's walk
When the call comes, athletes strip down to their competition kit and are led into the tunnel beneath the grandstand. Here, the psychological tension flips into pure adrenaline.
“Even though I've been retired for two years, walking through that tunnel still uplifts me and I get flashbacks,” Kilty reflects. “Standing behind those big electronic doors before they open, the smoke effects fire off and you run out into the crowd... that’s the biggest moment in the sport. That’s what I miss the most.”
Down on the track, Kilty highlighted the eye-opening level of technology embedded in modern athletics, from microchips tracking split times and stride frequency to high-precision starting blocks equipped with force sensors costing upwards of €8,000.
“Elite sprinters put up to 450 kilograms of force into those blocks in less than two-hundredths of a second,” he explained, recalling his own agonising false-start disqualification in the men's 100 metres final at the 2016 European Athletics Championships in Amsterdam when he started after the gun but his reaction time broke the legal threshold by mere thousandths of a second.
Full circle on home soil
The journey concludes where every championship race finishes: the mandatory gauntlet of the Mixed Zone for international broadcast interviews, followed immediately by the watchful eye of anti-doping chaperones before athletes are finally reunited with their phones to contact loved ones.
For Kilty, guiding visitors through Alexander Stadium carries a profound personal resonance. “It has a very special place in British sprinting, and for me personally,” he says. “I travelled down here for the National Young Athletes League final back in 2002. It was the first major stadium I ever saw and I thought, 'Wow, this is amazing!' I won my first national medal here at the English Schools Championships in 2005, and later set personal bests in the Diamond League. It’s got such a rich history, and it's fantastic to see it standing as a world-class home of athletics.”
By opening up the hidden corridors of Alexander Stadium, European Athletics and its ambassadors like Richard Kilty are doing more than just showing off facilities – they are connecting key partners and others directly to the raw emotion, cutting-edge technology and human drama that powers European track and field.