One of the world’s most respected technical officials, the 81-year-old was London 2012 athletics competition director.
Malcolm Rogers, the much-respected, Sheffield-based athletics official, has died aged 81.
Rogers was competition director for athletics at the London Olympics and Paralympics in 2012 but his history in the sport started years earlier.
Originally a PE teacher, he retired in 2011 to focus fully on officiating ahead of the London Games and in total enjoyed half a century as an athletics official. Roles included being national official secretary for nearly 20 years, he was an area technical official for Europe from 1996-2013 and long-time UK Athletics technical committee member.
He was also involved in officiating at para athletics events in the 1980s and 1990s and helped incorporate them into mainstream events.
In 2023 he was awarded an MBE for services to athletics. Based in Sheffield for many years, he was proud to see athletes like Jessica Ennis-Hill, Seb Coe and Peter Elliott emerge from his area.
UK Athletics said: “Malcolm was one of the best athletics officials in Britain and the world for more than 50 years. Recognised with an MBE in the 2023 King’s Birthday Honours, he was central to great athletics events and even recently had been assisting the Birmingham 2026 organising committee plan for this summer’s European Championships.
“What made Malcolm so special and so integral was his reliability and efficiency, especially during extremely stressful moments during major events where athletes were bidding to realise their dreams in front of thousands of people in the stands and millions watching on television.
“Never one to get flustered, ever, and an extremely calming presence, he worked on every major athletics event in the UK since 2002 in a role of either Competition Director or Competition Administration Manager.