DEAN MACEY remembers the times Charles van Commenee would arrive at training to watch him and his coach, Greg Richards. “He took an intense look at what we were doing and thought we worked well as a team,” recalls the decathlete. “There is no pussyfooting around with Charles. When you receive a compliment from him, you know you have deserved it. If he thinks you are a dick, he will tell you you’re a dick.”

British athletics, beware. In the next fortnight, the 50-year-old Dutchman is set to be appointed as Britain’s head coach of track and field. He has been offered the job and an announcement is expected once the Paralympics end. That will sever his links with the Dutch Olympic Committee, on which he is a technical coach. In Beijing last month he was Holland’s chef de mission; the country finished 12th in the medal table, its second-best performance.

In 2004, when UK Athletics was looking for a new national performance director, Van Commenee was the frontrunner. He was already the director of multi-events and jumps, but he was rejected for the position. He left for his native Holland, despite having coached Denise Lewis to the Olympic heptathlon title in 2000 and Kelly Sotherton to bronze in the same event four years later. As she was celebrating finishing third in Athens, Van Commenee said she had run “like a weasel” in the 800m, the last discipline, and called her a “wimp” for missing out on silver. He reduced her to tears, but the Birmingham athlete later admitted he was right.

The full story behind that outburst has not always been told. That night Sotherton ran 2min 12.27sec. It was a personal best, but a few weeks earlier she had performed so well in a training run at the pre-Olympic camp in Cyprus that Van Commenee knew she was capable of going much faster. Four years later, he was proved right. As Sotherton finished second in the heptathlon 800m in Beijing, she clocked 2:07.34. Not long after Athens, Sotherton said: “Charles is always going to be remembered for calling me a wimp, but people have to remember he is the one who has got me where I am. He’s emotional, and that’s what all coaches should be like when their athletes don’t do what they expect.”

Last week, on hearing that Van Commenee was the favourite to replace Dave Collins, whose contract as national performance director has not been renewed, Sotherton told her teammates what to expect. “He is very tough and not short of words,” she said. “There’s only a few of us still around who know what he is like, and some people will get a rude awakening. Charles is a great coach. He’s worked with world and Olympic champions and knows how to get results. He works hard, and nothing is left to chance. If things happen, it is because he has made them happen.”

Van Commenee rose through the coaching ranks in Holland after he stopped competing at 22 because of injury. Attention to detail is his strongest element. With him, the coach is king. When he took over in Holland, he received enough government funding for 75 full-time coaches and spotted areas in the Olympic team where improvements could be made, such as water polo, where Holland had won only two bronze medals. He invested £250,000 to make the women’s squad full-time: in Beijing they won gold.

But with all the hope for British athletics, whose team won only four medals last month, one short of its target, a word of caution. Macey, who retired after failing to make the Olympics, said: “From the moment Dave took over, he did a blinding job. He was determined and did everything I expected of him. Maybe we have to look at the recruitment of our [athletics] talent. There has to be a rugby player out there who can throw the shot 18 or 19 metres. Look at the size of them.

“Even though he is hard and harsh, Charles is still a good laugh to be around. But I would hate to think that athletics is following football – half a dodgy performance and we need to change.”