Two days spent hobnobbing with the World's leading rowing coaches, on the surface a reasonably enjoyable weekend but how useful was it?
The conference started with talks from 'coaches in the spotlight', a group of coaches that won gold in London. First off was Mario Woldt the Performance Director for the German rowing team, his talk set a theme that was continued by Thomas Poulsen of Denmark and finally the coaches of the British Women- Paul Thompson, Robin Williams and Paul Reedy. They contained some interesting anecdotes, there were some snippets of gold but essentially nothing was provided that left one with a feeling of real insight into their programmes. This is the beginning of an Olympiad, these speakers represent three of the most successful rowing programmes in the World, not only in London but at numerous previous games. They were presenting to a room full of coaches who themselves have coached crews to Olympic and World medals, would it not have been great to have been told the things that made the difference? I understand that coaches don't want to give away an advantage to the opposition but isn't FISA's mandate to help develop the sport? And isn't London 2012 already history?
A presentation that told us rather more about the training programmes of these nations or the major problems that occured and how they were dealt with would have given much more yet would it have weakened the position of the federation providing the information? I doubt it, for starters the federations in question rely on large sums of money and two of them (Germany and Great Britain) have vast numbers of athletes to call on. World leading coaches and athletes tell you that they want the competition to be of the highest standard and I beleive them because true champions must know they have beaten the best opposition. In my view the best opposition should have access to, or at least knowledge of the best training principles and practices available.
Highlights of the weekend for me were the talk on athlete and coach profiling by Annelen Collatz, the German team psychologist and most memorably having a Guinness with Anna Watkins, proving yet again that Olympic Gold medalists are so often delightfully refreshing and bright people. The definate lowlight was the almost complete lack of female coaches! FISA if you truly want to develop the sport then don't patronise women by giving them fluffy jobs in Switzerland, set targets to increase the number of women coaching in the sport. As the German psychologist said, Women communicate well- this is quite an important quality in a coach. Perhaps if we had successful female coaches speaking in the future they would communicate the things that really make a programme win.
Conference documents available here
The conference started with talks from 'coaches in the spotlight', a group of coaches that won gold in London. First off was Mario Woldt the Performance Director for the German rowing team, his talk set a theme that was continued by Thomas Poulsen of Denmark and finally the coaches of the British Women- Paul Thompson, Robin Williams and Paul Reedy. They contained some interesting anecdotes, there were some snippets of gold but essentially nothing was provided that left one with a feeling of real insight into their programmes. This is the beginning of an Olympiad, these speakers represent three of the most successful rowing programmes in the World, not only in London but at numerous previous games. They were presenting to a room full of coaches who themselves have coached crews to Olympic and World medals, would it not have been great to have been told the things that made the difference? I understand that coaches don't want to give away an advantage to the opposition but isn't FISA's mandate to help develop the sport? And isn't London 2012 already history?
A presentation that told us rather more about the training programmes of these nations or the major problems that occured and how they were dealt with would have given much more yet would it have weakened the position of the federation providing the information? I doubt it, for starters the federations in question rely on large sums of money and two of them (Germany and Great Britain) have vast numbers of athletes to call on. World leading coaches and athletes tell you that they want the competition to be of the highest standard and I beleive them because true champions must know they have beaten the best opposition. In my view the best opposition should have access to, or at least knowledge of the best training principles and practices available.
Highlights of the weekend for me were the talk on athlete and coach profiling by Annelen Collatz, the German team psychologist and most memorably having a Guinness with Anna Watkins, proving yet again that Olympic Gold medalists are so often delightfully refreshing and bright people. The definate lowlight was the almost complete lack of female coaches! FISA if you truly want to develop the sport then don't patronise women by giving them fluffy jobs in Switzerland, set targets to increase the number of women coaching in the sport. As the German psychologist said, Women communicate well- this is quite an important quality in a coach. Perhaps if we had successful female coaches speaking in the future they would communicate the things that really make a programme win.
Conference documents available here
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