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coach65

Listed below are comments made by coach65 between Sunday, 17th August 2008 and Tuesday, 18th August 2009.

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Steely Ennis has golden glow 10:01am on 18 Aug 2009 Ok Guys...her javelin throw IS technically poor - and I really do know what I'm talking about because I've helped coach athletes in the jav to Olympic qualification level. A coach's mindset is to look for improvement wherever it can be found and THAT is what gets athletes onto podiums. It's why we are never happy - always pushing for more and more.

My sport is one of immense skill and dedication, long hard winters training in the ice and snow, exceptionally committed young people who spend hours honing complex skills.

It gets up my nose when it's denegrated down to the level of admiring athletes for being pretty and describing the multi-events as gruelling - they're not! They are demonstrations of skill speed and power - hard work - yes - but mainly a reflection of a massive amount of work and a superb competition mentality.
Steely Ennis has golden glow 4:23pm on 17 Aug 2009 Guys..I know she's cute but you really do demean yourselves by all the rubbish about how she looks/how you want to dump your girlfriends for her...

The kid has worked her socks off for years and the biggest reaction is about how she looks! Give her some respect for her accomplishment!

And please - let's have an end to Hazel Irvine et al describing the Heptathlon as 'gruelling' - it's not! It's 7 events, 4 of which require high levels of skill & explosive power lasting seconds, a sprint hurdles lasting 13 seconds, and a 200 (quite fatiguing) topped off with the worst of all the 800. The training is gruelling yes, but the event is pretty minor compared to that.

And yes - I've done it - the decathlon - 10 events - 5 days a week training for 4+ years but the event itself - great fun!

Perhaps the commentary team believe that we are only capable of understanding 'gruelling' and not the technical side of things. Or perhaps they don't feel comfortable in looking at the technique themselves...

Anyone like to make an informed comment on her javelin...?
Charles in charge as British athletics goes Dutch 9:01pm on 23 Sep 2008 Thanks Matt - the comment made about Max Jones is sadly no surprise to me.

The depth of coaching talent in this country is still amazing. I've had the pleasure of working with coaches of recent multiple Olympic Champions and World Record Holders here in the UK. They're miles above the standard of most of the current coaches - they know their stuff inside out and they are just not listened to.

Why??

And our current crop of coaches have been waylaid by silly pointless exercises with big blue balls(s) that have more to do with fad or the fashion/fitness industry than serious training.

I hope that CVC is a catalyst for change and that we start supporting the hard-working athletes because all the current system does is let them down - badly.
Charles in charge as British athletics goes Dutch 1:48pm on 23 Sep 2008 Some more good observations.

On the subject of Daley Thompson becoming involved in the 'set-up' e.t.c....

If Daley wanted to be taken seriously as a coach/performance manager, then he would by now have a record of achievement(s) in these roles.

As far as I know he doesn't want this but his quotations/observations are spot-on most of the time and he does apparently give advice to up and coming athletes. His record as an ATHLETE stands second to none and will obviously inspire others.

Why do people continue to associate performance on the track with coaching/managerial ability?

Should the best brick layer in Wimpey Homes should be promoted to Chief Executive?
Charles in charge as British athletics goes Dutch 10:27am on 23 Sep 2008 Matt's excellent and incisive piece hits the nail on the head nicely. There are a few extra considerations though..

CVC took Denise to the top step of the podium after a massive amount of work had already been done by another coach. No problem of course - it goes on all the time - but it's a lot easier to make a great athlete out of a great athlete than it is to make one out of nothing at all. One swallow does not make a summer..

CVC has a big task ahead of him. In 4 years he will have little option other than to rearrange the deckchairs because we KNOW who is likely to be in the London 2012 athletics team already. We just have to make sure they train correctly and are looked after from a medical standpoint and then...que sera sera.

This IS relevant because of something alluded to by Brendan Foster during the commentary at Beijing. The big problem in the UK is the lack of young people taking an active part in the sport of athletics and the resultant paucity of high-level performers.

The quality of the coach education system lies, I believe, at the heart of this problem - resulting in athletes being held back from achieving their potential by coaching methodologies than have little chance of raising performances. The club based coaches have been educated poorly and have been treated as undeserving of 'proper' coach education.

This DOES happen and we need to bear in mind that athletes do not come onto the funding 'Radar' until they have performed above a certain level - almost always under the direction of their club coach or similar.

If Charles wants to bank on an improved number of athletes coming through the 'system' to populate the teams BEYOND 2012 then something HAS to be done with coach education and it has to be done FAST by someone with credibility and a proven pedigree.

This second appointment will be crucial.
Tweddle's Olympic dream ended by 0.025 6:56pm on 18 Aug 2008 So sad - sport is the cruelest of mistresses..

Even sadder was the fact that new young star Louis Smith was not permitted to even speak without his press officer!

Now THAT'S a good way to alienate your public on your first day in the limelight!

For goodness sake!
Paula deserves praise and plaudits 6:25pm on 18 Aug 2008 fireyMalindi wrote:

'I'm a world champion in another sport that's mentioned in this blog, so not an armchair synic. And in that sport you can get VERY serious back injuries, so suggesting running injuries are worse than those in other sports is absolutely ludicrous'

I'm assuming that you wrote this in response to my earlier assertion that injuries in athletics tend to be a bit more difficult to control than in sports where the degrees of freedom of the athlete's limbs are more constrained.

Getting into a debate about 'my injuries are more serious than yours e.t.c...' was not what I was driving at. Most sports have their own particular injury 'hotspots' caused by their peculiarities and they are all debilitating.

I'm not going to get into a sports science essay that will bore everyone to tears but, if you're genuinely interested then I can go through the science with you.

I digress.. but..

On the subject of Paula - we all will have our 'take' on what she did, how she reacted and what her motivation is but PLEASE..I defy you to be the person who would have taken her out of the team in the circumstances. She MUST have passed a fitness test, unless NIKE brought unbearable pressure to bear on the BOA...
And she DID finish 23rd(?) which is actually pretty good, just not good for an athlete of her standard.

Championship marathons are always 'graveyards' for athletes, remember the legendary Steve Jones? If Paula had a 'bad day at the office' then so be it.

The country has so much 'emotional capital' invested in her - as evidenced by this blog - that whatever happened was bound to elicit strong opinions.

She had an 'off' day and will, I'm sure, recover to fight again. I'm no fan of Paula's but I am a coach working at World level and it's the job of people like me to put these athletes together again for another try.

If you want to have a go then come on in and join the party 'cos we've got some serious work to do - mainly unpaid of course!
Paula deserves praise and plaudits 00:16am on 18 Aug 2008 A great spread of views here and very interesting they all are but, to take issue with one or two slightly mis-informed bloggers, it is not possible for someone to simply slip on a pair of trainers and start training for a place in an Olympic marathon, or any other Olympic track and field event.

I have the privelidge of preparing, coaching and guiding international athletes and I can tell you that anyone who makes the team represents the absolute cream of genetic talent. Marathon runners are not just joggers who decide to take it seriously for a bit...

The lottery money only goes to the very very best and even then it's not much. So don't assume that the money is 'thrown' at anyone who happens to show an interest in running jumping or throwing - it doesn't work like that.
Paula deserves praise and plaudits 1:05pm on 17 Aug 2008 gswarbrick -

There is indeed a lot of truth in what you say - but I don't think that Paula receives a lot of Lottery Money - I stand to be corrected on this but I believe as a near millionare she is 'means-tested' out of that.

The lottery may well go to support her place at Beijing 2008 but I that's not a major amount and I think we owe her the airline ticket and accommodation just to see if she COULD have done it.

On the subject of athletics/UKA Athletics

- producing cyclists, rowers e.t.c. is a little bit easier than producing track and field athletes.

These other sports have either full time or part-time professional coaches and the more controlled nature of these events (the mechanics of the work done on the pedal crank or the oar/rowlock) mean that there is less tendency towards serious injury and, dare I say it, less technical input of that nature required from coaches. These sports also - I understand - support athletes to move to a training venue and they can therefore eat, sleep and train, concentrating on nothing else.

Cyclists, swimmers and rowers largely self select from their club exploits and you just assess the best, put them in a velodrome, pool or boat, get them to work with each other under the guidance of a good, knowledgeable coaching team and you will do well.

The lottery money spent on these sports has been spent well and wisely and we now see the result. My hat goes 'off' to them and the far-sighted investment in their training systems.

UKA could do the same but the weakness is in coaching. We have fantastic facilities in the UK but we do not have coaches of sufficient calibre in sufficient depth. The reason for this is that prospective high-performance coaches are constantly alienated and cast aside in favour of celebrity 'names' who, because they have Olympic medals as athletes are assumed to have the skills required to coach athletes.

Coaches with years of unparalleled experience producing athletics medallists at all levels are cast aside and treated with ignominy in favour of retired Olympic medallists looking for a job.

I have watched - open mouthed - as I've seen this done to tried and tested coaches.

If we are serious about performing in athletics then, after this Olympics, we need to bring together ALL the decent coaches in the sport, LISTEN to them and work TOGETHER to get up to the standard we should be at.

Paula and Mara are 'one-offs' in a very healthy sector of athletics(road-running) but we can surely do better in the other areas of track and field if we take lessons from cycling, swimming and rowing.
Why is it so hard for Sotherton to throw the javelin? 12:09pm on 17 Aug 2008 tortous should of course be TORTUOUS! Apologies...

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