Fears are growing for former British sprinter Leon Baptiste after he vanished on a trip to Morocco, with his disappearance described as "very worrying".
Disappearance and background
The 41-year-old, who won two gold medals at the 2010 Commonwealth Games during his own sprinting career, now coaches a number of elite athletes and is employed by UK Athletics as a consultant. Among the athletes he coaches is 400m runner Charlie Dobson, who won bronze in the 4x400m at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
But as Dobson failed to make it out of the 400m semi-finals at the European Athletics Championships in Birmingham this week, Baptiste was absent, having not been heard from since visiting Morocco around two months ago.
Details of the trip
According to reports, he is believed to have visited the country for the weekend with some close friends, either for a stag do or a golfing trip. However, he has not been heard from since, with texts and calls made to his phone not being returned.
A former British teammate of Baptiste told The Guardian that the former 100m and 200m runner's disappearance is "very worrying".
"He was a very calm and sensible chap, in my experience," they add. "No one knows what has happened."
Impact on athlete and career
Dobson, who has been supported by former European 400m champion Martyn Rooney in Baptiste's absence, finished fourth in his semi-final earlier this week and alluded to the situation as he admitted it had been an "interesting eight weeks". However, he did not directly address the mystery surrounding his coach's disappearance.
Baptiste burst onto the scene as a teenager, winning 100m gold for Great Britain at the 2003 European Junior Championships in Finland at the age of 18, before also topping the podium with the 4x100m relay team. Those triumphs saw him named as the junior male athlete of the year by the British Athletics Writers' Association.
He would go on to win his first major title six years later as he won 200m gold for England at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, where he also won the men's 4x100m event alongside Ryan Scott, Mark Lewis-Francis and Marlon Devonish.
After undergoing surgery, Baptiste was forced to miss the 2012 Olympics in London and he announced his retirement in May 2014 at the age of 28, having decided not to defend his Commonwealth titles later that year. He then moved into coaching, helping guide Dobson to podium finishes at the last European Championships in Rome, as well as bronze medals in Olympic and World Championship relay events.
