Coaches Corner

The dictionary definition of a hobby is 'an activity or interest pursued for pleasure or relaxation and not as a main occupation'. Many coaches in Ireland describe themselves as hobby coaches. In fact, probably all of the best coaches in Ireland are 'hobby' coaches.       James Hillier recently emmersed with the Club TLG coaches for a weekend in Dublin. In introductions, he heard the hobby coach reference more than once and wasn't happy. The hobby coaches were doing themselves a disservice, a massive disservice. A massive disservice to the athletes they work with too.       A hobby is flying model aircraft or constructing model trains in your attic. It's not facilitating and managing and coaching elite and aspirational elite athletes to be the best they can be in one of the most cut throat sports in the world. In June and July, in competition season, coaching athletics is far from an activity 'pursued for pleasure and relaxation'.      

Coaches Corner is kicking off an initiative for the 2017/18 season with the launch of Club TLG . Club TLG comprises of sprint and hurdle coaches and athletes. It has a simple goal of knowledge and experience sharing between all members of the Club. Some examples of this will be transparency regarding training programs, race day preparations, troubleshooting and peer to peer mentoring and collaboration. It is intended to have monthly meet ups throughout the season. Details of the planned winter meet ups are below:   ·      October – kick off weekend in Dublin. James Hillier from the UK will attend and the weekend will be very hands on and practical workshop focused. Hillier recently had three athletes competing at the World Championships in London. ·       November – weekend camp in midlands with a ‘military’ theme! ·       December – pre-indoor competition meet up, probably in AIT. There will be on-going sharing and communication through a central file an

I prepared the following presentation back in 2015 highlighting what I saw as a coaching deficit and the effects it would have on the performances of Irish athletes in Global Championships. Some caveats up front. I am not a world class coach. I am not an elite coach. I am not an expert in this area. I see myself as a development coach, a hobby coach. I see short comings in the coaching landscape from my perspective as a development coach and also from my time as an average athlete. This is my opinion and may not be correct, it's just an opinion. However, what I feared would happen in 2015 has materialised in both Rio '16 and London '17. Two athletes have achieved Top 16 finishes in those Championships - Robert Heffernan and Thomas Barr. Ten years ago in the 2007 World Championships we had 8 athletes who finished in a Top 16 place. Depending on what statistics you use, the 2017 Worlds is our worst championship in 12 years (2005) and 2nd worst in 26 years (1991).

Some very interesting splits from the women's 400m at last weeks Irish Nationals. The race was won by Cliodhna Manning in a storming finish. Her first 200 to second 200 split was an extraordinary 0.67 seconds. The other top four were in a more standard range of 2.5-2.8 secs. Also, in comparison was the athlete's first 200m versus their 200m PB. Manning was 2.59 outside her 200m PB at 200m. Denny (0.88) and Moynihan (1.07) were probably more typical while an under par Healy was slower through 200m than normal. Christine Ohuruogu, renowned for her storming finishes, had a 1.80 split when she won World's in 2013. TV footage would only allow analysis  of the top 4.

  In the Derek Evely 'Shovelling Shit' article from 2013, here , there is one bit that stood out for me and I keep referencing back to. Evely talked about the factors of a successful program and the sequencing of those factors. The factors are: Coaching Excellence Quality Sports Medicine Access to Warm Weather But he warned against putting the cart before the horse and building a centre without these factors already in place. "Do not kit out a Centre with support and medical staff and then try to figure out who your coaches are going to be.  All the bells, whistles and support staff expertise can really help but only if driven by a coach who knows what to do with the information harvested from such tools. Without this, it is all a waste of money…money that could be better used for a coach’s salary". Now most coaches in this country will have little or no access anyway to the bells and whistles of a formal support structure or centre, but they can st

There is a lot of chatter on social media at present regarding the great success we are seeing at underage level and how we can ensure these great young athletes and their coaches are navigated through the post-junior years. Three articles in the past week have touched on the point. Cathal Dennehy, writing in the Irish Examiner on Saturday, link here , said "At some point, though, the association needs to dig deep into its coffers and appoint a full-time director of coaching, and it has to be someone of international repute, one whose results speak louder than a powerpoint presentation that can easily fool a boardroom". Along similar lines, on his RTE Sport blog, link here, David Gillick said "I think Athletics Ireland have an opportunity now to look at that talent and think: how do we nurture that? Is it a case where someone comes in and tries to manage it to the next level? Perhaps, because we always have talented juniors but the key is what happens to them

Some great insights from coach Roddy Gaynor. "one basic principle however when it comes to applying a coaching method to a specific athlete, just ask ‘does this make sense’?"   Q - What is your background - as an athlete, as a coach? My background in competing dates back to the 80’s. Overall, I won 7 national titles from Schools through to Senior level. Winning the senior outdoor 800M in 1982 was something of a breakthrough and I went on to gain a number of senior international Irish vests. My best over the 800 was 1.48. I was a graduate of the US collegiate system and made All-American on three occasions at NCAA Div 2 level. The US experience was very much an eye opener as a young aspiring athlete. Having not been beaten as an Irish secondary school student for two years, to being completely off the mark against senior collegiate athletes was somewhat devastating.   I was released from scholarship at the University of Arkansas after one year and I was very fortunate

There was a good night for Irish 4 x 400 relay running on Wednesday night when both u20 teams qualified for this summer's European u20 Championship in Italy. The women's team qualified and broke the Irish record. That was achieved without the #1 and #2 ranked athletes (at the time) who were unavailable. The quartet of Ciara Deely, Ellie O'Toole, Nicole King and Davicia Patterson guided by their team coach, David McCarthy, acquitted themselves very well. Nicole King in particular ran a 55.28 split (using Dartfish), excellent considering her PB is 56.47. Two key components to a strong relay programme are strength in depth and athletes who always seem to run well when given a baton. The last Irish relay team to qualify for an Olympics (and only the 4th ever) was the women's 4 x 400 team in London 2012 and they had depth and excellent relay runners. Granted they had a 'once in a generation' in Joanne Cuddihy to spearhead it all but it was a great team. The Clas

What a phenomenal day of athletics in Tullamore yesterday at the Irish Schools. It seems to be a regular occurrence in recent years. It is evidence the athlete talent is there. It is evidence the coaching talent is there. But the amazing talent who have competed in their last schools competition will now enter the most critical phase of their careers that will define whether their dreams are realised or not. Our official coaching framework is letting these athletes down in that key phase of their career. It is letting the coaches, who have developed them, down. The most critical years for our athletes are their collegiate years. This is where the wheels will usually come off if they are going to come off. A whole new world. Away from home in many cases. New temptations, new pressures. Their normal support circle has disappeared. A huge void can appear. Of course there will be athletes who will thrive despite this neglect and you could argue that it's that resilience that make

I recently met Paddy Fay for a catch up. We met in Raheny GAA Club bar and the breadth of his sporting background was on show. All the GAA lads seemed to know Paddy and he explained that he used to be the Director of Underage Football in the club. It was something I never knew about Paddy. His athletics coaching career included the athletics team in Lusk National School, where he was a teacher, and their success was exceptional particularly at sprints and relays. But primary school athletics was far from the pinnacle of his coaching career and when he finally retired he had amassed 59 National Senior medals, including 22 golds, 20 Irish Internationals and 4 Olympians. It was Paddy’s move into relays in the mid 90 that defined his legacy.  He recalled being handed the reigns of the National Sprint and Relay programme in late 1995, more of a toss and ‘there you go’ than a handoff. Morale was at an all-time low with the relays. Paddy wrote to all national sprint squad member

Picture at last weekend's Ton Le Gaoithe Wind Sprint Meet (Brian Corcoran, Paul McKee, Paddy Fay, Shane McCormack) According to Wikipedia, the Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which low ability individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability as much higher than it really is. The graph below was presented by Athletigen, a sports genetics and performance company, to represent the Coach's brain. The profile of a large percentage of our elite (sprints) coaches in Ireland is very young, i.e. coaching only 5-10 years. All probably early in their coaching careers, all enjoying relative success and all thinking they are somewhat the bees knees. Confidence is high. As we progress and go through generations of athletes, achieve more success but also failure and generally become more experienced, per the Dunning-Kruger effect we will likely hit a crisis of confidence.  It's at this stage in our coaching lifecycle when

The following article by Drew and Hayley Harrison was first published by the UL Communications and Marketing Department in May 2017. It is several months since Thomas Barr stunned the nation with his performances in Rio, coming 4 th in the Olympic 400mH final and breaking 48 seconds for the first time. Six months on and we are back to our normal routine working by day and coaching athletes on evenings and weekends as we have done for the last 22 years at the University of Limerick. In sport, the challenge to set the bar ever higher is always a priority. We believe that the key to success lies in optimising the total training environment for the athlete; this includes ensuring good facilities, equipment, proximity and quality of accommodation, quality of the training squad and the quality of the support structures around the athletes. A key element of the high performance environment is coaching. Coaches play a pivotal role in setting and monitoring all aspects of the training e

This is Part II of the Shane McCormack presentation on Sprint Development including case studies on three athletes including Phil Healy.

Irish badminton player, Scott Evans, tweeted this article about the Danish way of creating champions. Denmark is the mecca of Badminton in Europe and Scott moved there in his teens to immerse himself with the best coaches and players in Europe.   The article is by Nicklas Pyrdol and he introduces the Danish model of not just producing great athletes but also great people. He says  "let’s face it, medals are for the very few, so the rest still has to be able to get a good life.". He lays out the 6 simple aspects of how they do it. The part of becoming better together reminds me of points made on the recent discussion on coaching here  on the Jumping The Gun site. Irish athletes David Campbell and Ciaran O'Lionaird talked about their experiences and how athletes working together will yield greater results. However, the relentless pursuit of success mentioned by both on the same podcast would seem at odds with the Danish model of being more rounded and having a more ho

This is Part I of a presentation that Irish sprints coach, Shane McCormack, gave at a Kilkenny City Harriers organised coaching night in Kilkenny earlier this year. Part II will include case studies on three athletes that Shane has coached or still coaches.