ATHLETICS chief David Moorcroft has voiced his fears over the future of the nation's "unsporting" young people.

And the former world 5,000 metre record holder has criticised the modern school curriculum which, he claims, concentrates on the mental rather than the physical well-being of children.

Mr Moorcroft, chief executive of UK Athletics, was guest speaker at the M4 Business Breakfast.

The 48-year-old influential long distance runner gingerly mounted the magnificent staircase at the Celtic Manor Golf Club after a weekend operation on his knee before giving a wide-ranging talk on sport, its benefits to the individual, business and nations.

Mr Moorcroft, who was a member of the leading athletics club Coventry Godiva Harriers, spoke of the depression felt in his home city at the drop from the Premier League of Coventry City Football Club.

But he also spoke about the feeling success can bring to not just a region but a whole country such as Wales.

Mr Moorcroft, a sport evangelist commenting on current young sport in the UK, said: "Now children have massive choices and this mitigates against them being single-minded about sport.

"We can give kids dreams but we can't give them instant success - I am not sure that the school curriculum actually helps them these days as current demands now on children and academic pressures, which in one sense is great, is really working against the development of the whole person."

Mr Moorcroft spoke of the success that Wales has achieved from a relatively small population and the profile of the nation that had been created over recent years by athletes such as Colin Jackson and Newport's Christian Malcolm.

M4 Business Breakfast is sponsored by the South Wales Argus, Barclays, The Celtic Manor Resort, DTZ Debenham Tie Leung, Peacheys and the Welsh Development Agency.