Charles van Commenee breezed back into British athletics yesterday and accepted that the public perception is that he is a hard-nosed sourpuss. “For some reason I have the image here of being the most miserable person that you can walk into,” he said after he was officially anointed as the man to oversee the journey to the Olympic Games in London in 2012.

There followed an aside about not having a knife in his pocket, but the new head coach at UK Athletics (UKA) will try to give the sport a nip and tuck as it seeks a higher profile. “I will be tough when it is needed,” he said. “But I have 20 cards to play and toughness is only one of them.”

Van Commenee succeeds Dave Collins in a narrower role than the defunct one of performance director, with a brief to deliver Olympic medals rather than revamp a fractured sport. The Dutchman's four-year deal represents a huge coup for Niels de Vos, the UKA chief executive, who needed all his powers of persuasion to convince Van Commenee to turn his back on the Netherlands Olympic Committee, where he was the highly successful technical director.

Van Commenee, who spent four years in charge of Britain's combined events before being overlooked in 2004 when Collins was appointed, steered clear of rash promises, but his reputation as a no-nonsense motivator and world-class coach means that he will begin work in February surfing a wave of goodwill.

He knows that the pressure will be cranked up over the next four years, but he has the perspective to cope. “In 1986 I remember a young girl, 18 years old, she passed away during a training session of mine,” Van Commenee said. “We found out later she had a heart problem, but we didn't know at the time. I had to speak at the funeral and that was the biggest pressure ever. I had to perform. I was in tears. I had coached this girl for a few years. Since then, there is no pressure, really.”

Van Commenee will have a hands-on role and, while he did not rule out importing coaches from overseas if he feels that there is a need, he played down his reputation as a brutal taskmaster. “I'm always clear and some people perceive that as rude,” he said before flying back to the Netherlands.

And did he regret calling Kelly Sotherton “a wimp” when she won the bronze rather than silver in the Olympic heptathlon in Athens in 2004? “In hindsight, I should not have done it because it did not add anything at the time," he said. "The race was done. I should have told her a month later. It is about getting the best out of athletes and there is no time to waste. The word is bulls****ing and I don't do that.”