"After a world wide search to find a leading international coach with a proven track record of success, Canadian Joel Filliol has been appointed as the new Head Coach and will provide support to athletes and coaches identified in the Olympic Podium and Academy Squads to convert them into medal winners."
You can read the whole thing here.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
Bringing back the dead head coach
Mr. Schnitzspahn comments brought a lot to the discussion and I would like to thank him for that. There are some issues I would like to address, in order to clarify my position here.
First off, maybe there is some kind of terminology misunderstanding here, but when I talk about the Head coach position, I don’t see it as a position that is primarily devoted to coaching athletes, but mentoring and coaching the coaches, as well as providing objective and unbiased performance review and analysis of athletes and selections, and coordinating the overall coaching strategy and program delivery, including competition schedules, camps, etc. It is mainly a person that provides high-level technical input to the program. That is the profile of the person that BT and TriNZ are looking for.
It should be noted both BT and TriNZ Head Coach position are new positions, in a review of their structures both Federations deemed as an important one, to improve their chances in 2012. I feel this is an important aspect, since in an extremely competitive environment like Olympic Triathlon, doing things like before and hoping for things to happen is not the way to have success. It goes back to the classic definition of insanity. I wouldn't even say that BT and TriNZ have centralized systems, since their top athletes
train in different locations across the country, with different coaches. But both Federations saw the need to hire high level, experienced technical leaders. We also need to look at the context in which these Head Coaches will work. Both NZ and GB have great overall systems in place, with people with a high level of expertise in their jobs. It is my opinion that this is lacking in the US.
The question here is not the competence or ability of the people in the high-performance program, or themselves personally, so I don’t see any reason for anyone to be insulted. It is the fact that most of them are getting experience in their roles as things move along. This sort of “in-job training” is not in line with wanting the US to regain its place as the best Triathlon nation in the World. In the case of the high-performance director position, wouldn’t USAT profit from having Mr. Schnitzspahn take a step back and be in charge of hiring a true Head Coach along the lines I mentioned above? Wouldn’t USAT profit from doing an international and widely publicized job search for the coaching positions that the system in place has? I am sure that if the people that hold the position now are the best in the World, then they would win those job searches.
I didn’t want to turn this discussion as a GB vs USA contest, but since Mr. Schnitzspahn decided to compare both programs, I would like to comment on that. Looking at the list of results, it does seem that both programs are on an even keel. Now let’s look at the ages of the athletes that are getting those results: The truth is that the results from the US were obtained by a smaller number of athletes at an older age. The truth is that most of the US athletes that obtained those results will not be racing in 2012. If we further compare both programs, I have a question: Where are the US versions of athletes like Alistair Brownlee and Hollie Avil? This is the generation that will dominate the next two Olympic Games, and not a lot is being done in the US to bring up athletes with this profile. This is an issue that goes beyond personal vs centralized coaching, it goes to the core question which is: Is there a system in place in the US that allows to find and nurture the American versions of Alistair and Hollie? The answer is clearly no.
The issue of marketing and being known as a good coach is different from my inability to name a high-level US coach. I know who Darren Smith, Joel Filliol, Bill Davoren are (just to name a few), even if most people don’t know them. And even then, I would be hard pressed to name a good, high-level US coach. A coach with a history of developing several athletes to world-class, at least 4 years of coaching at ITU level, that maintains a training squad, just to name a few requisites. To sum it up, someone from the real world of coaching. Instead, the US bases all their medal hopes for 2012 in what a group of under-trained and under-experienced coaches can do in their spare time from (hopefully) full-time age-group coaching. In my opinion, this is just not enough.
Now, contrary to what Mr. Schnitzspahn might think, I am a big proponent of the de-centralized system. I think that is the best system if there are good local coaches that focus on working with juniors and under-23 athletes and that are always on the lookout for new talent. I think that is the best system if there is a strong club system, a system that provides support to development athletes and their coaches. The problem is that the US doesn’t have either, which means that any de-centralized system is based on little more than… hope. Hope that the next Sheila Taormina or Andy Potts will pop up.
This means that USAT needs to have a system in place that makes up for the lack structure in the sport. A system that, for example, has regional coaches with full-time training squads for junior and u-23 athletes. A system that rewards the coaches that work with Elite athletes. A system that creates more accountability at every level. My ideas regarding this will be the subject of my next post.
Lastly, I have had some people ask me, since I am not an American, why do I care about the direction USAT is taking its high-performance program? As a triathlon coach that currently lives in the US, I am somewhat puzzled by the fact that the Federation is not more pro-active in doing all it can to have a system in place that will discover, nurture and develop the 2012-2016 triathlon gold medalists. Throughout the World there are nations that with a lot less resources (not GB!) that are able to produce athletes at a higher rate than the US. With the resources available in this country and the huge talent pool there is, I can’t help feeling that more should be done.
First off, maybe there is some kind of terminology misunderstanding here, but when I talk about the Head coach position, I don’t see it as a position that is primarily devoted to coaching athletes, but mentoring and coaching the coaches, as well as providing objective and unbiased performance review and analysis of athletes and selections, and coordinating the overall coaching strategy and program delivery, including competition schedules, camps, etc. It is mainly a person that provides high-level technical input to the program. That is the profile of the person that BT and TriNZ are looking for.
It should be noted both BT and TriNZ Head Coach position are new positions, in a review of their structures both Federations deemed as an important one, to improve their chances in 2012. I feel this is an important aspect, since in an extremely competitive environment like Olympic Triathlon, doing things like before and hoping for things to happen is not the way to have success. It goes back to the classic definition of insanity. I wouldn't even say that BT and TriNZ have centralized systems, since their top athletes
train in different locations across the country, with different coaches. But both Federations saw the need to hire high level, experienced technical leaders. We also need to look at the context in which these Head Coaches will work. Both NZ and GB have great overall systems in place, with people with a high level of expertise in their jobs. It is my opinion that this is lacking in the US.
The question here is not the competence or ability of the people in the high-performance program, or themselves personally, so I don’t see any reason for anyone to be insulted. It is the fact that most of them are getting experience in their roles as things move along. This sort of “in-job training” is not in line with wanting the US to regain its place as the best Triathlon nation in the World. In the case of the high-performance director position, wouldn’t USAT profit from having Mr. Schnitzspahn take a step back and be in charge of hiring a true Head Coach along the lines I mentioned above? Wouldn’t USAT profit from doing an international and widely publicized job search for the coaching positions that the system in place has? I am sure that if the people that hold the position now are the best in the World, then they would win those job searches.
I didn’t want to turn this discussion as a GB vs USA contest, but since Mr. Schnitzspahn decided to compare both programs, I would like to comment on that. Looking at the list of results, it does seem that both programs are on an even keel. Now let’s look at the ages of the athletes that are getting those results: The truth is that the results from the US were obtained by a smaller number of athletes at an older age. The truth is that most of the US athletes that obtained those results will not be racing in 2012. If we further compare both programs, I have a question: Where are the US versions of athletes like Alistair Brownlee and Hollie Avil? This is the generation that will dominate the next two Olympic Games, and not a lot is being done in the US to bring up athletes with this profile. This is an issue that goes beyond personal vs centralized coaching, it goes to the core question which is: Is there a system in place in the US that allows to find and nurture the American versions of Alistair and Hollie? The answer is clearly no.
The issue of marketing and being known as a good coach is different from my inability to name a high-level US coach. I know who Darren Smith, Joel Filliol, Bill Davoren are (just to name a few), even if most people don’t know them. And even then, I would be hard pressed to name a good, high-level US coach. A coach with a history of developing several athletes to world-class, at least 4 years of coaching at ITU level, that maintains a training squad, just to name a few requisites. To sum it up, someone from the real world of coaching. Instead, the US bases all their medal hopes for 2012 in what a group of under-trained and under-experienced coaches can do in their spare time from (hopefully) full-time age-group coaching. In my opinion, this is just not enough.
Now, contrary to what Mr. Schnitzspahn might think, I am a big proponent of the de-centralized system. I think that is the best system if there are good local coaches that focus on working with juniors and under-23 athletes and that are always on the lookout for new talent. I think that is the best system if there is a strong club system, a system that provides support to development athletes and their coaches. The problem is that the US doesn’t have either, which means that any de-centralized system is based on little more than… hope. Hope that the next Sheila Taormina or Andy Potts will pop up.
This means that USAT needs to have a system in place that makes up for the lack structure in the sport. A system that, for example, has regional coaches with full-time training squads for junior and u-23 athletes. A system that rewards the coaches that work with Elite athletes. A system that creates more accountability at every level. My ideas regarding this will be the subject of my next post.
Lastly, I have had some people ask me, since I am not an American, why do I care about the direction USAT is taking its high-performance program? As a triathlon coach that currently lives in the US, I am somewhat puzzled by the fact that the Federation is not more pro-active in doing all it can to have a system in place that will discover, nurture and develop the 2012-2016 triathlon gold medalists. Throughout the World there are nations that with a lot less resources (not GB!) that are able to produce athletes at a higher rate than the US. With the resources available in this country and the huge talent pool there is, I can’t help feeling that more should be done.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Comments
The Sport Performance Director for USAT, Scott Schnitzspahn, was kind enough to comment on two of my posts. I thought that since most of the readers of the blog don't follow the comments on the blog, it would be a good idea to publish Mr. Schnitzspahn's comments here. I will address his comments in my next post.
In response to this post, this is what Mr. Schnitzspahn had to say:
"Paulo- You've got my attention. I'm the high performance director for USAT. You make some great points, but are missing a few facts I would like to point out.
Starting with this post, TriNZ is advertising to fill Stephen Farrell's old position of High Performance Director but renamed it national coach. If you read the job description you should note two important points that indicate that TriNZ is not going to a true National Coach model-
• Build on the existing culture of excellence and inclusiveness with personal coaches involved in coaching our high performance athletes.
• Ensure that personal coaches of athletes in the programme are fostered and developed alongside their athletes in accordance with the coaching pathway
I can argue for the USAT decentralizing model all day if you want, but I'll keep it to this comment on your post for now and address the BT one separately."
In response to this blog, there were his comments:
"Hi Paulo- you bring up some of my concerns as well- a very limited number of high performance coaches in the USA and a to of age-group focused coaches who do not care for high performance athletes. However, I do not believe that a true national coach model is the best model for the USA. You can read all about it in our High Performance Plan if you like or I can debate it with you sometime. I would like to comment on a few things about your post though.
First, the you reference the success of British Triathlon who is looking for a new national coach. The fact of the matter is that USA has 1 more medal in Olympic Games history than BT, and BT has none. Since Worlds for elites went draft legal in 1995, both countries have won 11 medals each. Here’s the scorecard:
Year BT USAT
2008 1 1
2007 0 1
2006 1 0
2005 0 1
2004 0 2
2003 0 1
2002 3 1
2001 0 2
2000 0 0
1999 1 0
1998 2 0
1997 1 0
1996 1 0
1995 1 2
Total 11 11
If you look at the names of those athletes and you know who their coach is, you’ll see that most, if not all of them, are products of their own will and determination and a personal coach, not a national coach (Simon Lessing, Tim Don, Sheila Taormina, Siri Lindley, Laura Bennett to name a few). So, I would not use BT as the model of success for a national coach. Our top athletes who have been Worlds and Olympic medalists have all had personal coaches. I believe most if not all of the BT athletes have worked with a personal coach as well, instead of the national coach. I would add that all of these athletes benefited from coaching support and other sport science resources from their federation coaching staff though.
Second, you contradict yourself saying that the best coaches in the world are unknowns because they aren’t out there marketing themselves, then says the fact you can’t name a high level USA coach is concerning. I will admit that it also makes me sad that 99 percent of our certified coaches do not work with high performance athletes. But, this is a problem in all individual Olympic sports that do not have a strong university program. Without a salary, there is no way to make a living for a high performance coach in Olympic sport. It’s either private or university. Since there is no such thing as a university triathlon coach (salaried), our top coaches make a living with other jobs, many of them coaching age-groupers, including you. I don’t see anything wrong with that. Just because you coach a few age-groupers does not make you a “hack.” And, I believe we do need a Level I coaching program that is introductory in nature to give some guidance to those coaches servicing our 115,000 age group members and 200k+ non-members. Level III is for elite focused coaches and will continue to be. We are going to be revamping Level II this year to be more focused on developing those coaching pursuing Level III.
Finally, to imply that the staff at the OTC is limited in knowledge is insulting. Cliff is a great coach and very knowledgeable, but Cliff was so busy with the day to day coaching that he was not able to coach the coaches. A true national coach that is doing their job really can’t be that available to develop future coaches. Additionally, when a coach does a mentorship program at the OTC, they are spending time with other top notch individuals at the OTC, not just USAT staff. These people are some of the best in the world at what they do. I’m sure you have never even spoken to any of our current staff.
So, in closing, I’ll just say that you make some good points about the limited number of high-performance coaches in the sport in general and the proliferation of age-group coaches who do not have high-performance experience. However, you are uninformed about the staff and athletes succeeding at the international level in the USA and Great Britain, and you do not offer a plan to improve, other than re-hiring a national coach. I think if one is to really get to know the athletes winning medals in the various triathlon nations they will find a very mixed rate of success for both national coach and personal coach models."
In response to this post, this is what Mr. Schnitzspahn had to say:
"Paulo- You've got my attention. I'm the high performance director for USAT. You make some great points, but are missing a few facts I would like to point out.
Starting with this post, TriNZ is advertising to fill Stephen Farrell's old position of High Performance Director but renamed it national coach. If you read the job description you should note two important points that indicate that TriNZ is not going to a true National Coach model-
• Build on the existing culture of excellence and inclusiveness with personal coaches involved in coaching our high performance athletes.
• Ensure that personal coaches of athletes in the programme are fostered and developed alongside their athletes in accordance with the coaching pathway
I can argue for the USAT decentralizing model all day if you want, but I'll keep it to this comment on your post for now and address the BT one separately."
In response to this blog, there were his comments:
"Hi Paulo- you bring up some of my concerns as well- a very limited number of high performance coaches in the USA and a to of age-group focused coaches who do not care for high performance athletes. However, I do not believe that a true national coach model is the best model for the USA. You can read all about it in our High Performance Plan if you like or I can debate it with you sometime. I would like to comment on a few things about your post though.
First, the you reference the success of British Triathlon who is looking for a new national coach. The fact of the matter is that USA has 1 more medal in Olympic Games history than BT, and BT has none. Since Worlds for elites went draft legal in 1995, both countries have won 11 medals each. Here’s the scorecard:
Year BT USAT
2008 1 1
2007 0 1
2006 1 0
2005 0 1
2004 0 2
2003 0 1
2002 3 1
2001 0 2
2000 0 0
1999 1 0
1998 2 0
1997 1 0
1996 1 0
1995 1 2
Total 11 11
If you look at the names of those athletes and you know who their coach is, you’ll see that most, if not all of them, are products of their own will and determination and a personal coach, not a national coach (Simon Lessing, Tim Don, Sheila Taormina, Siri Lindley, Laura Bennett to name a few). So, I would not use BT as the model of success for a national coach. Our top athletes who have been Worlds and Olympic medalists have all had personal coaches. I believe most if not all of the BT athletes have worked with a personal coach as well, instead of the national coach. I would add that all of these athletes benefited from coaching support and other sport science resources from their federation coaching staff though.
Second, you contradict yourself saying that the best coaches in the world are unknowns because they aren’t out there marketing themselves, then says the fact you can’t name a high level USA coach is concerning. I will admit that it also makes me sad that 99 percent of our certified coaches do not work with high performance athletes. But, this is a problem in all individual Olympic sports that do not have a strong university program. Without a salary, there is no way to make a living for a high performance coach in Olympic sport. It’s either private or university. Since there is no such thing as a university triathlon coach (salaried), our top coaches make a living with other jobs, many of them coaching age-groupers, including you. I don’t see anything wrong with that. Just because you coach a few age-groupers does not make you a “hack.” And, I believe we do need a Level I coaching program that is introductory in nature to give some guidance to those coaches servicing our 115,000 age group members and 200k+ non-members. Level III is for elite focused coaches and will continue to be. We are going to be revamping Level II this year to be more focused on developing those coaching pursuing Level III.
Finally, to imply that the staff at the OTC is limited in knowledge is insulting. Cliff is a great coach and very knowledgeable, but Cliff was so busy with the day to day coaching that he was not able to coach the coaches. A true national coach that is doing their job really can’t be that available to develop future coaches. Additionally, when a coach does a mentorship program at the OTC, they are spending time with other top notch individuals at the OTC, not just USAT staff. These people are some of the best in the world at what they do. I’m sure you have never even spoken to any of our current staff.
So, in closing, I’ll just say that you make some good points about the limited number of high-performance coaches in the sport in general and the proliferation of age-group coaches who do not have high-performance experience. However, you are uninformed about the staff and athletes succeeding at the international level in the USA and Great Britain, and you do not offer a plan to improve, other than re-hiring a national coach. I think if one is to really get to know the athletes winning medals in the various triathlon nations they will find a very mixed rate of success for both national coach and personal coach models."
Thursday, December 18, 2008
My endurance reads
John Kuhlman over at The Outdoor Journey asked me what are my top five endurance reads, you can read them here. (I didn't pick the picture...)
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Beating the dead head coach position
Still on last week's subject, I was sent the ad that Triathlon New Zealand put up to fill the... you guessed it, Head Coach position (link). The ad itself is a pretty good definition of what the job entails.
Monday, December 1, 2008
The real world of coaching II
In this post I talked a bit about what I called the “real world of coaching”. Some comments to that post prompted me to expand a bit on that concept and what can be done here in the US to create and nurture real coaching.
The usual American attitude regarding any commercial activity is that the free market will regulate itself. When it comes to triathlon coaching, the general thinking is that after the period of huge expansion we’re going through now, a sort of triathlon coaching bubble, the market will sort itself out, weeding out the bad coaches and keeping the good coaches. This process will reward the coaches that are successful in the existing market. But the market is based on the age-group athletes, and the successful coaches will be those that have an effective business catering to this market. These are often the coaches that can market themselves better, not the best coaches. And obviously all this process alienates high-performance coaching.
This is a problem for the development of elite athletes for two reasons. First is that coaches that might be more geared to high-performance coaching will either have to have a business catering to age-group athletes (or maybe an unrelated professional activity) to support their “habit”, or they will not be able to make a living out of the sport just by working with elites. Second is that developing elite athletes might make the mistake of working with the (perceived as) successful age-group coaches, with the negative implications that this will have in their proper development through the sport.
The lack of real coaches in the US is already hurting the sport, and it will continue to stall elite athlete development in the long run. This is a problem for one institution: USAT.
USAT’s whole action should be geared towards promoting a healthy and successful high-performance program. The core of that high-performance program should be the (real) coaches. USAT has the ability to directly impact the development of the elite program through the coaching certifications and that should start right at Level I. The Level I certification should not be aimed to certify the army of personal trainers looking to broaden their client base, but it should have an elite development perspective. Its main focus should be on junior development and transition to elite ITU racing. It should include a basic outlook on draft-legal racing and the Olympic qualification. But above all, it needs to be more thorough and train coaches that will effectively contribute to the high-performance program.
This way of thinking should be kept on subsequent levels of certification. This means that Level II and Level III should only be accessible to those coaches that already work with junior or elite ITU athletes. This ensures that in order for coaches to aspire to the highest levels of certification, they have to make an effort to work and support elite athletes, thus contributing to the high-performance program. With this in mind, it is obviously a waste of resources to support the activity of those coaches that are perceived as being successful coaches without bringing anything to the high-performance mission. The current effort to bring coaches to the OTC ends up being misdirected if those that are not committed to high-performance just show up in order to be able to market themselves as high-performance coaches without effectively working with elite athletes. The fact that the knowledge-base resident at the OTC is severely limited since Cliff English left also contributes to the relative uselessness of the initiative.
The high-performance-centered efforts would obviously decrease the number of coaches that apply for the certification clinics. However, it would serve to put the pressure on the coaches to seek out and work with elite athletes, which would improve the quality of the high-performance program.
Another important aspect of a high-performance program is strong technical leadership. The model that was implemented at USAT since the Head Coach position was abolished relies heavily on the individual athletes and their respective coaches. This would work well in an environment where there is a very strong coaching community. But let’s face it: In order to be a strong nation in triathlon, qualifying 6 athletes for the Olympics and obtaining at least one medal, there needs to be a pool of 10-15 athletes at world-class level. If we’re expecting that these athletes all have their individual world-class coaches, we’re talking of at least 10 world-class coaches in one nation. The problem with this is that 10 is about half of the world-class triathlon coaches in the World. So clearly, this model will not work, because most of the good athletes in a nation will be working with coaches that simply are not qualified for the job. So even if the talent is there, relying on a model based on the individual athletes just breeds mediocrity.
Having a highly qualified Head Coach is the model that most top nations follow. A good example is British Triathlon, which at the beginning of another Olympic cycle are searching for their new Head Coach (link). The job description in that ad is a good example of the role the Head Coach plays in a well organized and very successful institution like British Triathlon. The way BT works and the results its program has obtained teach us valuable lessons on how to build a successful program.
So, the question that is left to ask is if real coaching is limited to high-performance coaching? The answer is undoubtedly yes. Only at the highest level of competition are the coaching skills tested at their maximum. There are maybe thousands of people that can coach successfully at the lowest level of competition, e.g. helping a newbie finish an Ironman race, but only a maximum number of 6 coaches every 4 years get to celebrate winning an Olympic medal. I will let you decide which is harder to accomplish.
The usual American attitude regarding any commercial activity is that the free market will regulate itself. When it comes to triathlon coaching, the general thinking is that after the period of huge expansion we’re going through now, a sort of triathlon coaching bubble, the market will sort itself out, weeding out the bad coaches and keeping the good coaches. This process will reward the coaches that are successful in the existing market. But the market is based on the age-group athletes, and the successful coaches will be those that have an effective business catering to this market. These are often the coaches that can market themselves better, not the best coaches. And obviously all this process alienates high-performance coaching.
This is a problem for the development of elite athletes for two reasons. First is that coaches that might be more geared to high-performance coaching will either have to have a business catering to age-group athletes (or maybe an unrelated professional activity) to support their “habit”, or they will not be able to make a living out of the sport just by working with elites. Second is that developing elite athletes might make the mistake of working with the (perceived as) successful age-group coaches, with the negative implications that this will have in their proper development through the sport.
The lack of real coaches in the US is already hurting the sport, and it will continue to stall elite athlete development in the long run. This is a problem for one institution: USAT.
USAT’s whole action should be geared towards promoting a healthy and successful high-performance program. The core of that high-performance program should be the (real) coaches. USAT has the ability to directly impact the development of the elite program through the coaching certifications and that should start right at Level I. The Level I certification should not be aimed to certify the army of personal trainers looking to broaden their client base, but it should have an elite development perspective. Its main focus should be on junior development and transition to elite ITU racing. It should include a basic outlook on draft-legal racing and the Olympic qualification. But above all, it needs to be more thorough and train coaches that will effectively contribute to the high-performance program.
This way of thinking should be kept on subsequent levels of certification. This means that Level II and Level III should only be accessible to those coaches that already work with junior or elite ITU athletes. This ensures that in order for coaches to aspire to the highest levels of certification, they have to make an effort to work and support elite athletes, thus contributing to the high-performance program. With this in mind, it is obviously a waste of resources to support the activity of those coaches that are perceived as being successful coaches without bringing anything to the high-performance mission. The current effort to bring coaches to the OTC ends up being misdirected if those that are not committed to high-performance just show up in order to be able to market themselves as high-performance coaches without effectively working with elite athletes. The fact that the knowledge-base resident at the OTC is severely limited since Cliff English left also contributes to the relative uselessness of the initiative.
The high-performance-centered efforts would obviously decrease the number of coaches that apply for the certification clinics. However, it would serve to put the pressure on the coaches to seek out and work with elite athletes, which would improve the quality of the high-performance program.
Another important aspect of a high-performance program is strong technical leadership. The model that was implemented at USAT since the Head Coach position was abolished relies heavily on the individual athletes and their respective coaches. This would work well in an environment where there is a very strong coaching community. But let’s face it: In order to be a strong nation in triathlon, qualifying 6 athletes for the Olympics and obtaining at least one medal, there needs to be a pool of 10-15 athletes at world-class level. If we’re expecting that these athletes all have their individual world-class coaches, we’re talking of at least 10 world-class coaches in one nation. The problem with this is that 10 is about half of the world-class triathlon coaches in the World. So clearly, this model will not work, because most of the good athletes in a nation will be working with coaches that simply are not qualified for the job. So even if the talent is there, relying on a model based on the individual athletes just breeds mediocrity.
Having a highly qualified Head Coach is the model that most top nations follow. A good example is British Triathlon, which at the beginning of another Olympic cycle are searching for their new Head Coach (link). The job description in that ad is a good example of the role the Head Coach plays in a well organized and very successful institution like British Triathlon. The way BT works and the results its program has obtained teach us valuable lessons on how to build a successful program.
So, the question that is left to ask is if real coaching is limited to high-performance coaching? The answer is undoubtedly yes. Only at the highest level of competition are the coaching skills tested at their maximum. There are maybe thousands of people that can coach successfully at the lowest level of competition, e.g. helping a newbie finish an Ironman race, but only a maximum number of 6 coaches every 4 years get to celebrate winning an Olympic medal. I will let you decide which is harder to accomplish.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Simon says
Simon Whitfield on his latest blog post touches a subject with which I agree 100%. It's good to see an extremely successful athlete expressing this opinion, since when a coach does it, most people think that it's just the coach tooting his own horn.
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