A U S T R A L I A ’ S # 1 C O A C H I N G M A GPARALYMPIC A Z I NEDITION E
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PARALYMPIC EDITION
FAMILY CULTURE THE KEY TO SUCCESS
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TOP PARATIPS ISSUE NINE/SEPTEMBER 2016
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REINVENTING YOURSELF AS A COACH
THE SUPERHUMANS
plus…
APC TACKLE INEQUALITY / NEW CLASSIFICATION RESEARCH 8 FUN PARALYMPIC FACTS / BREAKING DOWN COACHINGLIFE BARRIERS 1 //
PARALYMPIC EDITION
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GOOD LUCK TO ALL OUR RIO COACHES!
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THANKS FOR ALL THE YEARS OF PLANNING, THE LATE NIGHTS, THE SACRIFICES YOU’VE MADE TO STEER OUR ATHLETES TO PARALYMPIC SUCCESS IN 2016. STEWART FLEMING AND THE COACHINGLIFE TEAM
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FROM THE EDITOR
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PARALYMPIC EDITION
This time last year, I was sitting in my
Glenn Tasker article) I even managed
office, staring out the window at the dry,
to interview the crooner, Tony Dee, from
Queensland bush, wondering how I could
the amazing Superhuman advertisement
be the best coach possible. I wanted to
created by Channel 4 in the UK.
September 2016 ISSUE 9
As a coach, you get to bring out the super-
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talk to the best coaches in the world and find their secrets, to learn what makes their clients champions in sport, business and life.
human in your client, regardless of the tall buildings in front of them or the bullets they need to outrace. You allow them
In the last 12 months I have interviewed
to tap into the super powers within and
more than 180 coaches who create
conquer the various forms of Kryptonite
excellence every week. For the most
that affect us all.
part, these amazing people are quiet and unassuming. They are the true Clark Kents to their clients Superman achievements. And just as Clark Kent provides direction to his alien, force of nature, alter-ego,
You are the coach behind the superman. It’s hard that, as coaches, we need recognised success to keep the clients coming and food on the table.
coaches provide the pivot point for
In the next edition, we will be addressing
excellence in their clients.
this very thing with specific articles on
It has been an amazing 12 months with 9 editions created containing over 200,000 words in over 180 articles. We are now a recognised professional development tool for all swimming coaches in the country
marketing, building profile and creating a successful business. An edition not to be missed, so until then, enjoy the Paralympics and … Happy Coaching
and have partnered with universities to ensure our content is top-notch.
date. I challenge anyone to watch the Paralympics and not think “I’m not trying hard enough”. In interviewing the coaches that work with these athletes, I now have a new appreciation of achievement. These amazing people have already overcome so much that even missing out on selection is handled with dignity and courage. (see
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Now, with the Paralympic Edition, we offer the most inspiring edition to
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CONTENTS
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AUSTRALIAN PARALYMPIC COMMITTEE - Tackling inequality on the world’s biggest stage for para sports. Glenn Tasker, CEO, Australian Paralympic Committee
10 WHEELCHAIR BASKETBALL - How intense recovery and
26 PARA TRIATHLON - A first time sport for Rio inclusion. Here’s why the Aussies are looking all class for the competition. Corey Bacon, Head Coach, Triathlon Australia
individualised programs will help the Rollers beat the best in Rio. Ben Ettridge, Head Coach, Men’s National Wheelchair Basketball Team (Rollers), Basketball Australia
30 PARA SAILING - With sailing off the program for Tokyo
14 PARA SWIMMING - Perfect processes lead to
34 WHEELCHAIR RUGBY - It’s fast, furious and crash-tastic.
performance. Jan Cameron’s tips for the best reward in coaching. Jan Cameron, Performance Swim Coach, University of Sunshine Coast
Here’s why ‘Murderball’ is our new favourite spectator sport. Brad Dubberley, Head Coach, Men’s National Wheelchair Rugby Team (Steelers)
18 PARALYMPIC CLASSIFICATION SYSTEMS - Where the
38 PARA EQUESTRIAN - Searching for new stars: finding
classification systems are heading with the help of top science research. Dr Mark Connick, Dr Emma Beckman and Dr Sean Tweedy, University of Queensland
2024, will it be gold in Rio? We have the inside information on our teams. Geoff Woolley, SKUD Coach, Australian Sailing
the best horses and riders in Australia to become our next Rio medallists. Julia Battams, High Performance Manager (Dressage & Para Equestrian), Equestrian Australia
22 PARA ROWING - Where do para athletes come from?
42 PARA ARCHERY - Coach mentoring both athlete
How does our small but might rowing team compete at the top level? We’ve got all the answers here. Gordon Marcks, Senior Coach, Rowing Australia
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and coach through the learning curve of elite international competition. Stephen Jennison, Coach Mentor, Archery Australia www.coachinglife.com.au
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45 PARA TABLE TENNIS - With 2 World Top 10 players,
64 SPORT AND AUTISM - Research is showing that sport
coaching can improve life quality of people with autism spectrum disorder. Find out how to apply it to your coaching. Dr Edoardo G. F. Rosso, University of South Australia
National Coach Roger Massie believes the family culture of para sport plays a big part in results. Read his thoughts here. Roger Massie, National Coach (Paralympic Program), Table Tennis Australia
48 ALL ABILITIES CRICKET - Change at a community club
68 WE ARE THE SUPERHUMANS - Interview with
level can create national waves. All Abiilities cricket is growing rapidly and Hussain Hanif is the coach at the coalface. Hussain Hanif, Coach, Yarraville Cricket Club
52 WHEELCHAIR BASKETBALL - Are our players hungry
enough? Look at what kind of mental toughness and elite mentality it takes to make it against the best. Tom Kyle, Head Coach, Women’s National Wheelchair Basketball Team (Gliders), Basketball Australia
56 PARA-CYCLING - Are you reinventing yourself as a
coach? Learn why adapting your coaching to your athlete is key for top results. Peter Day, Performance Director (Para-cycling), Cycling Australia
60 DOWN SYNDROME SWIMMING - Australia has won the
singer, Tony Dee, of the hit Paralympic video, “We’re the Superhumans” by Channel 4. Get the inside goss on its production. Interview with Tony Dee by Editor Stewart Fleming
70 PARA FOOTBALL - With the World Championships in
their spotlight, read how the Pararoos are an elite team in every way with an eye on the future. Kai Lammert, Head Coach, Men’s National Paralympic Team (Pararoos), Football Federation Australia
73 8 Fun Paralympic Facts 74 Article References 75 The Last Word
last 5 Down Syndrome Swimming World Championships. Find out how the athletes train to elite level with Head Coach, John Beckworth. John Beckworth, Head Coach, Down Syndrome Swimming Australia
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MY FIRST INVOLVEMENT IN PARASPORT HAPPENED BEFORE I JOINED THE AUSTRALIAN PARALYMPIC COMMITTEE.
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was working for Swimming NSW as their Executive Director. At that stage, Swimming Australia had employed one of the first staff members of any sport to look after “swimmers with a disability”. She wrote policies for the board and competition manuals for events, and managed to convince the Swimming Australia Board to incorporate multi-class events in the National Championships. Because I had some positive involvement during that process, they asked if Swimming NSW follow suit for their State Championships, which we did. The multi-class inclusion was very successful, and within 3-4 years, every state in Australia had included multi-class events. This created an athlete pathway for swimmers with a disability. When I moved from Swimming NSW to SOCOG (Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games) and became the Competition Manager for swimming, I had to do the swimming program for the Olympic event and for the Paralympics. This also gave me the experience of dealing with the Technical Delegate from the International Paralympic Committee. The Olympic swimming event at Sydney was fantastic, but the Paralympic event really changed the way swimming events were seen for athletes with a
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TACKLING INEQUALITY ON THE BIGGEST STAGE AUSTRALIAN PARALYMPIC COMMITTEE – GLENN TASKER, CEO disability. They became very serious athletes, training harder, which I’ve now seen develop through Athens, Beijing and London’s Paralympic Games. In 2001, I began working with Swimming Australia, and at that stage, the national swimming program for para-swimmers was organised by the Australian Paralympic Committee (APC). In 2002, we were able to migrate that program into the Swimming Australia High Performance Program. We employed a head coach, picked the teams, did the training, selected staff and so on. Effectively, to be involved in para-swimming, you have to be part of a swimming club, so
most of our swimmers were already in clubs and training in the same lanes as able-bodied athletes. We became the second sport to mainstream para athletes after Athletics Australia. I finished up as CEO with Swimming Australia just before the 2008 Beijing Olympics and began working for Tennis NSW. There, we had 3 of the best wheelchair tennis players in Australia but without any structure or support. So we started a wheelchair tennis program at Sydney Olympic Park Tennis Centre, got a sponsor, and now our 3 players are world-ranked. Not long after, I had a phone call from the CEO of the APC, wondering if I’d be interested in www.coachinglife.com.au
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Our stated mission for Rio is to finish in the top 5 countries. We’ve been in the top 5 since Barcelona 1992, and we were No.1 in Sydney 2000.
becoming a Director (a volunteer role), given a few were retiring. I took that on, and from that, I was included in the IPC Swimming Committee, and then made Chairman.
INEQUALITY AND ISSUES IN PARA-SPORT I have an inbuilt need for equality. I see so many inequalities with parasport which are nobody’s fault, but still need to be fixed. In Rio, you will see two very good Australian teams who will perform well. The issue for the Paralympians is, while training
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just as hard as their counterparts on the Olympic team, they also have to manage their disability, whatever that may be. Yet the funding for the two is very different. The Paralympic team funding would be less than 25% of the Olympic team’s funding overall. There is about $130 million provided annually to high performance able-bodied sport, and there’s $30 million allocated to elite para-sport. It’s a big difference, and while I wouldn’t suggest it should be equal, if our funding was doubled, the potential to double our team size and resulting medal count would be enormous.
An issue for para-athletes recently, is that in the last 18 months, the Federal Government has been clamping down on social services fraud, which in itself is great. One of the decisions they made was, however, if you’re on a disability support pension and you go overseas for a certain period of time, the pension stops. A lot of our athletes are on disability support pensions but go overseas to train and can be away for 3 months, and therefore their pension is cut off. It’s not intended to be a problem, but there is a lack of foresight.
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In addition, these athletes are subject to the same drug testing and doping policies as able-bodied, so they have to be very careful about what they do take to manage their various conditions. Our athletes have to be really good managers of everything they do in their lives. We’ll be competing in 15 sports at the Paralympics, and of those 15, 13 are mainstream sports and are managed by their national sporting organisation (NSO). Those sports without a national body, the APC manages. Mainstream sports write their own selection criteria, which is signed off by the APC. They effectively choose their own athletes and the APC rubber stamps their selections. For the sports that are not mainstream and therefore not managed by a national body, APC staff choose the athletes who will represent Australia. These are sports such as boccia and wheelchair rugby. The selection process is pretty clear cut and we have very few appeals, none for the last Paralympics in London. This is very different to the AOC who have a huge volume
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of athletes and sports, and their appeals can be more about character than performance. Our system isn’t completely infallible, however. We collaborate closely with the AOC and share resources to ensure consistency across documentation and experience for the athletes at the Games. The teams stay in the same accommodation, in the same section of the Olympic Village. Even the International Olympic Committee and the International Paralympic Committee have a joint marketing agreement.
RIO AND TOKYO During the Games themselves, my role is to support the Chef de Mission if something should happen. I give advice, represent the Board, and act as a liaison between our team and the IPC. If there was an issue that needed a more senior authority, I would then get involved, but otherwise I’m the chief cheer squad! Sailing was unfortunately dropped from the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics program because the International Sailing Federation didn’t build a strong enough
case. Everyone, including Australian Sailing, is obviously unhappy about it. This happens because the Paralympic Games have specific core sports – cycling, athletics, swimming – which don’t have to apply for inclusion each cycle. All other sports need to do so to stay on the program for the Games, and the International Sailing Federation’s application didn’t meet the IPC standards for inclusion, so they were dropped. As a result, we’ll be dealing with two new sports in 2020 that are both very popular in Asia – Badminton and Taekwondo. After Rio, the team is evaluated and an official report is compiled on all our performances – by sport and by athlete – and we’ll be trying to build a case to go to the Government via the Australian Sports Commission to see if we can get some funding for the new sports, as well as the existing sports. A fair amount of the Paralympic coaches come from able-bodied sports and from specific para-sport pathways. For example, the Wheelchair Rugby coach, Brad Dubberley, was a wheelchair rugby player himself. He’s www.coachinglife.com.au
PARALYMPIC EDITION never coached able-bodied rugby. However, on the swimming team, there’s not a single coach on that team who doesn’t work with able-bodied athletes as well as para-athletes. The youngest swimmer on our Paralympic team for Rio is 14, and a world champion. Some coaches have a great reputation for excelling with paraathletes and so attract more to their program. There’s even a wheelchair rugby coach in Sydney who is a mainstream coach as well.
THE BIG ISSUE: CLASSIFICATION The big issue with para-sport is the classification systems. A lot are being reworked at the moment. There’s more science being put into it, and it would be good to see the IPC move that process forward, perhaps more quickly. In Australia, classification is very underfunded. While the government gives us money for classification, we have a lot of trouble doing what we need to: educating classifiers and educating athletes. The killer for us is when an athlete is classified and starts going to competitions, you can then have protests regarding their classification. If someone protests your classification, you have to build a case to defend it,
which takes time and effort. We’ve only got one person working in that area, and while she’s very good, we just don’t have the resources to deal with it properly. Using swimming as an example, there are two parts to the classification process. First, there’s the verification of significant medical evidence of an athlete’s impairment. Then, each athlete is observed both in and out of competition of an independent classification panel, who examine movement through water and classify each athlete based on their functional ability. Once both processes are complete, they give the athlete their classification. It’s a functional classification, so you’re either S1 through to S10. S1 being the most impaired, and S10 the least. There are also 3 visually impaired classes, and one intellectually impaired class. There are classifiers in various sports around the country, and we have two on our staff. Many sports do not have that expertise in their office all the time. They will have someone looking after para-sport in general only. Our classification expert has to prepare a lot of documentation for all these other sport protests. Any given year, there’s a good number of protests, and there are more in a Paralympic
year. Sometimes there is very little difference between two classes and a competitor’s classification comes down to the opinion of two people. If they are right on the line of being up or down a class, the classification can make a big difference, as a medallist in S5 would potentially be just a finalist in S6.
PARALYMPIC GOALS We’ll be pushing hard to have sailing re-included in future Paralympics, as our sailing team went well in Beijing and London and should go well in Rio. We don’t want athletes to have a disincentive to train. This is why many sports don’t want to be kicked out of the Olympics either, as it can be devastating for the sport. Personally, I would like to see some streamlining of the program for some sports. For example, swimming has 145 events on the program, which could do with some refinement. Our stated mission for Rio is to finish in the top 5 countries. We’ve been in the top 5 since Barcelona 1992, and we were No.1 in Sydney 2000. The Brazillians were barely in the top 10 for London, but they’ve since poured a lot of money into para-sport in the last 4 years, and will be a big threat to us as a top 5 country.
TOP AUSSIE PARALYMPIANS MOST GOLD MEDALS
BEST AUSSIE SPORTS
• Matthew Cowdrey has won 13 gold medals, 5 silver and 3 bronze in swimming events over 3 Paralympic Games (2004, 2008, 2012).
• Australia has won the majority of its Paralympic medals in Athletics (443 medals) and Swimming (381 medals). Cycling is a distant third sport, at 84 medals total.
• Tim Sullivan OAM is second only to Matthew in his gold medal count, with 10 gold medals won in athletics events: 400m. 200m, 100m, 4x400m relay and 4x100m relay teams.
MOST SPORTS • Daphne Ceeney has won 3 gold medals, 5 silver and 6 bronze over 5 Paralympic events: Archery, Athletics, Swimming, Table Tennis and Wheelchair Fencing. Daphne was also our first ever female gold medallist in the Paralympics, winning 2 gold in swimming at the 1960 Paralympics.
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MULTI-TALENTED ATHLETES • Some Paralympians have competed at both Winter and Summer Games. Michael Milton OAM is Australia’s most successful Paralympic Athlete for the Winter Paralympics, winning 6 gold, 3 silver and 2 bronze medals in skiing. However, he has also competed more recently as a Paralympic cyclist and Para Triathlete in the Summer Paralympics, walked the Kokoda Track twice and scaled Mt Kilamanjaro – all with one leg.
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BEN ETTRIDGE, Head Coach, Australian Men’s National Wheelchair WHEELCHAIR BASKETBALL Basketball Team (Rollers) – BEN ETTRIDGE, Head Coach, Australian Men’s National Wheelchair Basketball Team (Rollers)
ROLL ON I GREW UP IN A SMALL COUNTRY TOWN, 3 HOURS OUT OF PERTH. WHEN THE BASKETBALL BOOM STARTED TO TAKE OFF IN THE LATE 80S AND EARLY 90S, I DECIDED IT WAS SOMETHING I WANTED TO PLAY. THERE WAS NO INDOOR COURT IN TOWN, ONLY OUTDOOR BITUMEN COURTS WITH WOODEN BACKBOARDS AND CHAIN HOOPS.
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I wasn’t quite good enough to represent Western Australia at State level, but I just loved the game. I played 7 or 8 times a week, everywhere I could go. By 28, the wear and tear had taken its toll and I had knee and shoulder injuries. It seemed like the time to stop and try coaching instead.
he first person I saw play basketball was Michael Jordan. I wanted to emulate those sorts of feats so I spent a lot of time doing calf raises and jumping up. The bane of my mother’s existence was black hand prints on the roof because I was constantly jumping and touching. I probably should have spent more time practicing shooting and dribbling!
YOU HAVE TO MAKE MISTAKES
As a 14-year-old I made our U18 representative team, so I was playing two years out of my age group. From that, I found a specialist basketball program run at Willetton Senior High School by Alan Black – the coach of the Perth Wildcats. After tryouts, I was offered a position there, so my family made the commitment for my sister, a very good netball player, and I to move to the city to follow our sporting dreams.
An opportunity came up to coach the wheelchair team in Perth. I’d had a relationship with them along the way, given that my Dad is in a wheelchair, was one of the first coaches of the team back in the 90s, and was a former Paralympian himself in the sport. Although I’ve never played a game in a wheelchair, I’d been to their practices and watched their games with him. The national league back www.coachinglife.com.au
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ONES TO WATCH We’ve had some big games in the past against the USA, having beaten them for the gold at the World Cup. CANADA is another, and then TURKEY is one we’ve had a big rivalry with. They always come out and give it everything they’ve got.
then, and is still now, pretty strong, and there’s good players to coach. My Dad stayed on board as a mentor, but gave me the reins and freedom to make mistakes. It was very daunting, going from coaching juniors in local competitions to suddenly flying across Australia for games in the national
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My idea was to create a team I would have loved to play for. You never want to be a guy’s last coach. I’ve never wanted to be that guy, where a player has walked away from the game because he didn’t enjoy it or wasn’t treated with respect. league. You grow up very quick. That first year was very difficult because it was a Paralympic year, so the focus for many players was Europe rather than the national league. My team was very young and inexperienced but it was good to make some mistakes, get some things right, and really develop your coaching philosophies. By the end of the season, we’d gotten two great players back from Italy (Justin Eveson and Brad Ness) and won 4 of the last 5 games. The following year we had Justin back for the full duration of the season. He was an up and coming player who, with Shaun Norris, would form the dynamic duo that carried the Rollers
(the Australian team) from 2002-2014. We made the Grand Final that year and lost by 15 points to the defending champions, which was fantastic. We were growing and moving forward as a team. It all started roll on from there. Opportunity after opportunity came up and 12 years later I’m looking at a 3rd Paralympic Games as a coach.
CLASSIFICATION AND THE POINTS SYSTEM For wheelchair basketball, each player is classified on what they can do. The guys with the most function are 4.5 pointers, and those with the least function are 1 pointers, depending
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We manage expectations by having no expectations. We want to be the best recovered team. We want to have everyone hitting a personal best on their bench press before they get on the plane. on what’s put them in a wheelchair. Amputees and knee injuries or similar are classified generally as 4.5 points and severe spinal injuries are 1 point. My job as a coach is to ensure that the 5 players on the court add up to 14 points. That adds another dimension to the coaching, as it’s not just a case of subbing Player A for Player B. It’s got to add up within the parameters. If it doesn’t, you’re given a technical foul, which is quite embarrassing! The first thing people yell out is: “Can’t you add up?”. I do a lot of preparation. I have my starting 5 and first substitution on an Excel spreadsheet, but also have to consider outliers such as injuries or a foul and what guys can be subbed in
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for that situation. You might need to remove a guy from the court worth 2 points, but don’t have a direct onefor-one replacement, so you have to remove a 1-pointer as well who’s done nothing wrong so you can replace them both with one 3-pointer player. You’ve then got to manage the guy coming off court who needs a few words of advice, and also to remind the other guy who’s had to come off with him that he’s done nothing wrong and is still important to the team effort. It’s not just substitutions, it’s man management and a bit of math thrown in! For example, if Andrew Bogut has to come off the court for an injury, coach Andrej Lemanis can bring in another shooter or point guard. I can’t do that
because I might need that guy to make points/combinations work. The next best player for me isn’t the 3-pointer who sits behind him on the depth chart, it might be a 4-pointer but he doesn’t fit our combination so another guy gets the opportunity. It does become very difficult managing that. Managing expectations is very important, right down to the selection of your team. My philosophy on it has been to shift away from an individually dominant team with one star player, to have combinations that work together. We select our best combinations rather than our best players. There’s also managing egos and the unselected guys, because you don’t want to lose them forever. We’ve a few guys that have had to bide their time across the World Championships into the Paralympics, just waiting for that right combination to mature and step up.
TRANSFORMING INTO AN ELITE TEAM Growing up I had some very good coaches and some very bad coaches. www.coachinglife.com.au
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My idea was to create a team I would have loved to play for. You never want to be a guy’s last coach. I’ve never wanted to be that guy, where a player has walked away from the game because he didn’t enjoy it or wasn’t treated with respect. I’ve tried to emulate things from very successful coaches such as Lindsay Gaze, John Wooden, Ric Charlesworth, Wayne Bennett and Leigh Matthews. They were successful for a reason. I’ve also been fortunate to have very good mentors in the Paralympic field: Brendan Keogh and Chris Nunn. I’ve focused on recovery as a point where we can make a big difference between us and our rivals, as we’re all shooting a 1000 shots a week, pushing around in the same wheelchairs. We now see at the end of tournaments that our guys are at 85-90% rather than 6570% strength. There was no research on recovery of paraplegical Paralympic athletes to begin with, so we started using heat thermometers, saliva tests, sweat tests, even using pallet trackers to check distance travelled over a game. The pallet trackers came from a warehouse location system and we strapped them to the bottom of each chair, which allowed us to compare workloads for each athlete and ensure we tailored their post-game recovery efforts exactly. This information now also feeds into their gym strength and conditioning workouts. We individualise their programs so they can become the best players they can possibly be. To their credit, a lot of players have never had anything like this before. They’ve come in at age 23 after a motorcycle accident, for example, having never been an elite sportsperson and don’t know what ice baths are or what making healthy lifestyle choices looks like. Educating the athletes is something we spend a lot of time on, and, I think, is why they buy into the system. They know what they’re doing, why, and how it’s going to influence the end result. www.coachinglife.com.au
We’ve a good mix of guys. Everyone’s got a different story and brings something to the table. Our team meetings are not your average! It’s pretty humbling to sit there when a guy is talking about being revived twice on the way to hospital. You’re dealing with some pretty tough and resilient men who don’t need a lot of motivating. My Dad has helped me understand them a bit more, about being in the prime of your life and then suddenly you’re in a wheelchair hating the world, hating anyone who’s trying to help you and anyone who’s not trying to help you. But as far as the basketball side of it works, we’re elite athletes, the top 1%. If you want to be a Roller, there’s no excuses for not doing the work. We treat everyone as equal. Our 1/18th mentality means that everyone shares 1/18th of the glory and 1/18th of the heartache if we lose. When we go away, we all sit together, never letting someone sit by themselves no matter how bad their day’s been. In many of our practices, we embody that team mentality and put no one above the team.
THE PROCESS TAKES CARE OF THE RESULT I’ve got Tom Kyle with me in Rio, who has just spent time coaching the Gliders (national women’s team). He’s a good fit for the team, and has been to a Paralympics and World Cup with me before. We’ve also got a new assistant, Luke Brennan, who is a great young basketball brain. He does a lot of scouting and together with video tech, Jeremy Synot, managed to get us 6-7 games of every team we’re going to play at the Games. One of our biggest points of difference with other teams is going to be knowledge and feeding that into our game plan. I think it will put us in a good place for Rio. We have a saying from John Wooden: “The process takes care of the result.” Everything we do has a process and that process always stays the same.
You know what each part does and each piece has its own moves to do. Our team is spread out over the country, so we have an online video system that we use to share drills, set plans and game plan with everyone. The guys are able to do these same drills with their state coach, whether they’re in Brisbane or Tasmania. Then when they all turn up to a camp, they’re all on the same page. It’s part of the evolution of them becoming professional basketball players. For Rio, if we focus on winning, then we’re setting ourselves up to lose. I doubt any of the guys have heard me say the word ‘win’ or ‘gold medal’ more than 3 times in the last 12 years. We manage expectations by having no expectations. We want to be the best recovered team. We want to have everyone hitting a personal best on their bench press before they get on the plane. We’re going to play as hard as we can for 40 minutes and going to trust our process. It doesn’t change whether it’s game one, a quarter final or in a World Cup match. It keeps you improving as well, otherwise where do you go once you win a World Championship? We’ve won two World Championships and a Paralympic gold medal, but by focusing on the process, we can still aspire to be better.
TOP TIP Back yourself. You’re going to make mistakes, but if you don’t make those mistakes, how do you improve? That’s what you want from your players, so why not adopt the same philosophy as a coach?
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Photo: University of Sunshine Coast
PARALYMPIC EDITION
SWIMMING – JAN CAMERON, Performance Swim Coach, University of Sunshine Coast
PERFECT PROCESSES CREATE PERFORMANCE AS A YOUNG KID, I WATCHED DAWN FRASER AND ALL THE LEGENDS OF THE DAY COMPETING AT THE 1960 OLYMPIC GAMES ON TV. AT 12, I WAS MUCKING AROUND AT THE LOCAL POOL AT DRUMMOYNE IN SYDNEY WHEN THE COACH TAPPED ME ON THE HEAD AND SAID, “WHO COACHES YOU?” “OH, I DON’T HAVE A COACH,” I REPLIED.
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is name was Forbes Carlile, quite a famous coach of the day who was one of the few coaches with a scientific background at the time. He offered me a scholarship to swim in the squad, and by the time I was 17, I was on the Olympic team for the 1964 Tokyo Games. My rapid rise was probably more due to my very strong determination than talent. I hadn’t been involved in the sport for very long, so I was pretty naïve. At the Olympics, I stayed focused, did everything I’d learned and watched from Dawn Fraser (who was a mentor of that time), and was able to win a position of the Australian freestyle relay team, where we broke the world record and won silver behind
the USA team. It’s something you never forget and a great experience. I was also very lucky, as there wasn’t money in swimming in those days like there is now. Every trip and expenses other than the Olympics came from your own pocket. I really loved swimming, loved the environment and everything. I got a scholarship to study Physical Education and Teaching at Wollongong University, but put it on hold to swim at the Commonwealth Games in Jamaica where I won 3 medals. During study at Wollongong, I was approached to be the swim coach at the local Port Kembla Swim Club. I’d been recommended by top coach, Don www.coachinglife.com.au
PARALYMPIC EDITION Head Coach and National Performance Manager. Many of my charges swam internationally and onto NZ Olympic teams. As National Head Coach of NZ, I was a rare commodity operating in a male-dominated industry, as it still is today.
ONES TO WATCH CHINA AND RUSSIA! It can be hard to predict as there are always a lot of new faces that don’t appear on the regular rounds.
Talbot. That set me on a pathway that I’m still on today. I started coaching a small group of 20 kids and fell in love with it. I haven’t looked back and I’ve now been coaching for 47 years. After 1967, I went back to Wollongong, studying at Teacher’s College, when I was approached by the CEO of Port Kembla swim club looking for a coach. I said, “Oh no, you’ve got the wrong number. I’m not a coach, I’m a student at the Uni.” They’d been told by Don Talbot that I’d be really good. “I don’t really know what I’m doing,” I said. But I gave it a go, and started coaching a small group of 20 kids and just fell in love with it. It was the best thing ever and I haven’t looked back really. I’d been working with Don for some time when we decided to go to Canada together to coach. We were there for 6.5 years and managed to put 6 kids on the Canadian Olympic team from scratch. Following this was a 2-year stint of successful coaching in Nashville, USA. When the Australian Institute of Sport was to open, we came back to Australia for Don to be its first Director. After another stint in Canada and our divorce, I married a Kiwi and moved to New Zealand for 24 years where I coached a top club, North Shore, for 10 years before becoming the National Youth Coach, the National www.coachinglife.com.au
In 2016, I am the only female coach for Rio on both the Olympic and Paralympic Australian swimming coaching staff.
MY PARA-COACHING JOURNEY I’ve really enjoyed every aspect of my coaching. It’s been varied, and brought me into contact with great people, great coaches, great swimmers and great parents. I’ve been very privileged to have experienced that and go to a number of Olympic Games. However, other than in 1972, this will be my first Paralympics, so I’m quite excited about that! While I was coaching in Sydney, I taught a young Paraplegic girl to swim (Pauline English), with whom I eventually went to Heidelberg, Germany, for the Paralympics in 1972. She won silver at those Games and I was part of the Australian coaching staff. While working in Canada, I’d also coached a young woman, Josee Guy, who won multiple medals for Canada at the Paralympics. There’s no difference coaching ablebodied or para-swimmers. There are some things that you have to learn about the classification system, as each swimmer may be in a different category depending on their disability. Classification is divided into groups of physical, vision and mental disabilities. Getting to know each swimmer, creating a strong relationship, work ethic and a great team culture is the essence of coaching a squad anywhere in the world. It’s not very different between coaching able-bodied and para-swimmers. There are some things that you have to learn, which is about the classification system, how it works. The swimmers are now classified into different groups: physical, vision and mental. Learning those and understanding what events
they can swim, what their limitations are, and then you get on with it. I’ve had a long coaching history, covering the full spectrum of coaching from age group to Olympics and Paralympics. Most coaches have a squad in where there may be one para-athlete. I’ve had different roles in coaching over many years in different countries, but I feel the same values have been there and are still today. If you’re a coach, you have to be prepared to give 100% to your job. That does not mean you do not have a life, or that the athletes don’t either. It means you’ve got to have life balance, and understand that when you go to work, you’re 100% focused on work. Being a Paralympic representative for Australia requires both athlete and coach to dedicate and discipline themselves to complete the task – to be the absolute best they can be in Rio.
OUR PARA-SWIMMING PROGRAM I have 7 young men to coach at the moment, and they are just great people. That’s the most important thing – that they’re great people, citizens and role models. I’m very privileged to be part of that and join them on their journey. All 7 are on the team, and they’re working hard towards being the best they can be for Australia and for themselves in Rio. They’re all very independent, and most drive except for the vision impaired. 4 are current university students and are doing very well academically, 2 are working and one is still in high school. The athletes are all full-time at the program we run at the University of Sunshine Coast, originally started by Dr. Brendan Burkett. The university is a great support, and Swimming Australia is the major sponsor of the program. They help provide the environment – pool space, the gym, support staff, mechanics, and anything else I need to do the job. It’s a great partnership. The 7 young men are trained in a team environment, all together in the pool, and support one another. Inside COACHINGLIFE
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that team, they are all individuals working towards their events in their own special way. Two of the boys are vision-impaired and have some issues in reading the program, so I print it out for them so they don’t have problems trying to look at the board. It’s little things like that that make a difference in their ability to get on and do the job. We train in a team environment, as swimming is very difficult to do alone. When we get together in the morning and it’s a bit chilly, they have a bit of banter and wind me up, which is part of the fun of it. You’ve got to have fun! Together we embark on that session and then evaluate it. How did it go? Could we have done better? What could we do better next time? The most rewarding part of coaching is seeing the athletes develop over time, not just seeing them get medals. Whether they win or lose, it’s just so exciting because I know it’s taken a lot of work to get to that point, and the rewards are there. They may not
win a gold medal, but it they get up and improve again and again, it is rewarding.
because it doesn’t matter how hard
Each athlete has their own set of goals – not my goals, theirs. It’s my job, as the coach, to design the program that’s going to help them achieve that goal. It’s important that the goals are real and not fictional, that they’re believed in both by them and myself. Then they can get up to race knowing they’re ready. It’s their job to deliver – I can’t swim it for them! So we’ve all got roles in the journey, of which mine is to use my experience to design the program and support the athletes so they have every opportunity to achieve their goals. Inside the design of the program are all the processes required to achieve the ultimate outcomes: technical, skills, efficiencies, strength, race planning and practice, nutrition, recovery, biomechanical analysis and body support. It’s very process driven, with a lot of time, effort and money going into it. These processes are really critical
STAYING FOCUSED FOR SUCCESS
5 TOP TIPS
1
A coach doesn’t start at high performance. You do the hard yards in club development and learn all the nuances of your craft. A coach starting out usually starts with youngsters and builds up into age groupers, then maybe 16/17/18-year-olds. Performance coaching is then taking the cream of that and working with them specifically.
2
I recommend every coach gets a mentor coach. This was one of the turning points in my career. I was fortunate to have Don Talbot, one of the greatest coaches ever
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you go. If you’re not doing it well, your performance will fall short.
3 of this group went to both London and Beijing Paralympics. One was in Atlanta and Athens as well – Rick Pendleton – who is now at his 4th Paralympics. The whole team travels together, first to Auburn, Alabama for a training camp prior to the Games. We then fly to Rio on the 1st of September and move into the Athlete Village. It can be hard for rookies especially, of which we have 4 at USC, not to be overwhelmed. It’s even harder to stay focused and not allow the distractions to permeate the preparation. Luckily we’ve a very good support group to help our swimmers do that. Once they’ve finished competing and the swimming events are over, they have more opportunity to explore and enjoy.
in Australia, who helped me refine skills and challenge myself. Spend time with that coach learning your craft and being challenged, as it will make your journey in coaching more productive.
3
When opportunities come up, you have to back yourself and go for them. Throw yourself into it, do the very best you can, and usually good things come from that.
4
In coaching, you never stop learning. Always strive to be better and constantly upskill yourself.
5
Enjoy the whole experience. Having fun while working is a great recipe.
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rmnoa357 / Shutterstock.com
PARALYMPIC EDITION
By Mark Connick, Ph.D., Emma Beckman, Ph.D., and Sean Tweedy, Ph.D.
ADVANCING PARALYMPIC CLASSIFICATION THROUGH SCIENCE THE PARALYMPIC GAMES IS ORGANISED BY THE INTERNATIONAL PARALYMPIC COMMITTEE (IPC) AND IS THE 3RD LARGEST SPORTING EVENT IN THE WORLD AFTER THE OLYMPIC GAMES AND THE FIFA WORLD CUP.
INTRODUCTION At the elite level of Paralympic sport, it is sometimes perceived that classification can play a major role in deciding the medals. With Paralympic athletes receiving increasing international recognition and commercial sponsorship, it is becoming more important than ever that classification decisions are defensible and based on sound evidence. In the lead up to the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games, this article will provide coaches with 1) an explanation of the vital importance of classification in Paralympic sport and an overview of the current classification methods, 2) an indication of the IPC’s commitment to classification research programs and
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strategies for improving classification systems, and 3) information on the role that coaches can play.
WHY IS CLASSIFICATION SO IMPORTANT TO COMPETITION OUTCOMES? Classification systems are not unique to Paralympic sport. In fact, they are central to most modern sports. Combat sports classify variables such as body mass, sex and age, and athletics events classify age and sex. In Paralympic classification, the variable of interest is impairment. Sport classification systems increase the prospect of close competition which in turn increases the motivation to participate. Therefore, when a valid classification system is
introduced, it will lead to a tangible increase in sport participation. For example, in rowing, the competitiveness of lightweight rowers is limited against rowers with greater body mass. Hence the introduction of lightweight rowing classes now provides opportunities for people who have a relatively lower body mass to participate at all levels of competition, thereby increasing participation in rowing among a group of people who would otherwise not be competing. Other sport classification systems operate in a similar way, including Paralympic classification. 22 Paralympic sports will be represented at this year’s Rio Games. Each sport’s classification system provides a structure for competition www.coachinglife.com.au
PARALYMPIC EDITION
Without classification, athletes who have impairments that negatively affect sport performance would be competitively disadvantaged in sporting competitions against their non-disabled counterparts.
by 1) defining who is eligible to participate, and 2) defining the classes in which eligible athletes compete. Paralympic classification systems promote participation in sport by people with disabilities, by offering competitions that control for the impact of impairment on the outcome of competition. Without classification, athletes who have impairments that negatively affect sport performance would be competitively disadvantaged in sporting competitions against their non-disabled counterparts. In addition, athletes with more severe impairments would be competitively disadvantaged against athletes with less severe impairments. Classification systems that adequately control for the impact that impairment has on the execution of sport skills will ensure that the athletes who win the medals will be those who are the most talented and best trained. Athletes will not succeed just because their impairments cause less difficulty in sport than the impairments of their competitors.
CURRENT SYSTEMS OF CLASSIFICATION There are 8 physical impairment types that are eligible in Paralympic sport – impaired muscle strength, impaired range of movement, hypertonia, athetosis, ataxia, limb deficiency, leg length difference and short stature. In addition to these physical impairments, Paralympic sport provides competitions for athletes with visual and intellectual impairments. For the purposes of this article we will consider only the physical impairments. www.coachinglife.com.au
Current methods for classifying physical impairments are conducted by a classification panel, comprising a medical classifier (a doctor or physiotherapist) and a sports technician (i.e. a sport scientist). They obtain a detailed sports training history via interview, assess relevant impairments (e.g. impaired strength and range of movement etc.) and evaluate the athlete’s ability to perform novel and sport-specific activities. The classifiers then amalgamate this information and use their combined clinical expert opinion to match the athlete profile to one of the class profiles which are described in the classification rules for each sport.
WHAT ARE THE LIMITATIONS OF CURRENT SYSTEMS OF CLASSIFICATION? Current classification systems represent the best way to classify physical impairments – they are considered to be better than the previous system which was based on medical diagnosis – and are based on expert assessment of the key areas required for valid classification (i.e. impairment severity, type and location, the impact on sports activity and the training status of the athlete). However, one of the most important limitations of the current system is that there is very little scientific evidence to support their use. Furthermore, because the decision-making process is inherently subjective, there is no scientific way to objectively evaluate classification decisions. This is often not a problem because when an athlete’s impairment profile matches
one of the class profiles correct decisions are relatively easy. However, there are many situations where decision-making is more difficult. Consider for example, the sport of wheelchair track racing. Athletes with impaired muscle strength compete in one of four classes from T51 containing athletes with the most severe impairments to T54 containing athletes with the least severe impairments. A hypothetical wheelchair track athlete with an incomplete spinal cord injury who has partial trunk function and partial arm function could be allocated to a number of classes because the athlete would have less arm strength compared to the T53 and T54 profiles but more trunk strength than T51, T52 and T53 profiles. Because the athlete profile does not directly fit a class profile, the decision becomes nuanced. To classify these athletes, the classifiers must decide, “to what extent does the advantage of increased trunk strength outweigh the disadvantage caused by lower arm strength?” and determine the most appropriate class. This decision-making is the basis of current Paralympic classification systems. Since there is no scientific evidence on which to base such decisions, the problem is currently resolved by relying on the experience and judgment of the classifiers – the decision is inherently subjective. While there is no doubting the integrity or expertise of Paralympic classifiers, there is no objective way of assessing the validity of these decisions and inevitably this will sometimes lead to the perception that a given athlete is either at a competitive advantage or disadvantage compared to others in their class. In the case of the hypothetical athlete with an incomplete spinal cord injury, impaired arm strength might be COACHINGLIFE
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PARALYMPIC EDITION perceived as a disadvantage if they are allocated to the T54 and T53 classes, but because the athlete has some trunk strength they might be perceived to have an advantage in the T52 class. The IPC realises that these are critical issues and to address the limitations of current classification systems, the IPC mandated the development of evidence-based classification systems in the 2007 and the recently updated Classification Codes.
WHAT ARE EVIDENCE-BASED PARALYMPIC CLASSIFICATION SYSTEMS? The advance towards evidence-based systems represents an important shift in the evolution of Paralympic classification systems. Evidence-based systems will ensure that, as far as possible, classification decisions have a sound scientific basis, increasing the precision of measurements and the objectivity of decisions. This will reduce (but not completely eliminate) reliance on personal opinion and increase the transparency of decision-making. Evidence-based classification will provide stakeholders in the Paralympic Movement with the best possible guarantee that the athletes who win the medals will be those who are the most talented, determined and well trained rather than those who are the least impaired.
THE IPC CLASSIFICATION RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT CENTRES In 2013, after the IPC mandated the development of evidence-based classification and the conceptual model for how to develop evidencebased systems was introduced in the IPC Position Stand on Classification, the IPC opened three international centres for Paralympic classification research and development. One for physical impairment, one for visual impairment and one for intellectual impairment. The remit of the centres is to translate the theory of evidencebased classification into practice by taking a lead role in the development of evidence-based systems.
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The centres are based at The University of Queensland (physical impairments), the University of Leuven, Belgium (intellectual impairments), and Vrije University Amsterdam, The Netherlands (visual impairments). While the centres are based in 3 countries, all of the centres collaborate with organisations and universities internationally. For example, our research centre in Australia has collaborated with organisations and researchers from universities in Africa, the Middle East, Europe, North America and Asia. Furthermore, elite and novice athletes from across the world have participated in our research.
WHAT RESEARCH IS REQUIRED TO DEVELOP EVIDENCE-BASED CLASSIFICATION SYSTEMS? There are five fundamental steps to develop evidence-based classification systems: Step 1 involves identification of the sport and the impairment type(s) that research will focus on. Step 2 requires identification of the performance determinants in the selected sport. This is an important step because the outcomes will help to determine the muscle actions that must be evaluated in Step 3. Step 3 is concerned with developing objective and precise measures that reliably evaluate the impairments of strength, range of movement and coordination that are likely to affect sport performance. In addition, Step 3 involves developing measures to evaluate the determinants of sport performance. For example, because the effects of impairment on acceleration and top speed in sprinting might differ, the effect of impairment on these activities should be evaluated separately. Step 4 involves validating the impairment measures identified in Step 3. In order to validate the measures, a sample of athletes from a given sport performs the impairment and performance measures developed in Step 3. Statistically it is then possible
to quantify the effect that different levels of impairment severity have on sport performance. For example, a valid impairment measure will permit a comparison of the relative effects of severe and mild arm strength impairments on accelerating a wheelchair. Finally, Step 5 uses outcomes from Step 4 to inform development of a scientific method for setting the minimum impairment criteria, the number of sport classes, as well as methods for allocating athletes to classes based on how much their impairment is likely to affect performance in the sport of interest. These new systems of classification will provide a valid and reliable way of achieving the aim of classification – to minimise the impact of an eligible impairment on the outcome of competition – and will make classification decisions more defensible, objective and transparent. There are two further classification issues that are of importance to athletes and coaches which can be addressed through scientific research. First, in the current system many athletes and coaches are concerned about the possibility that high-levels of prolonged training will place the athlete in a class for athletes with less severe impairments. The perception is that this would constitute a competitive disadvantage. Secondly, there is concern that some currently competing athletes intentionally exaggerate their impairments in order to deliberately obtain a more favourable class. This is a form of cheating called intentional misrepresentation which can carry a 2-year ban from competing in IPC events. Overcoming these issues is critical to the long-term success of any classification system. While the current system has processes and procedures to address these issues, improvements can be made by applying the scientific method to physiological and biomechanical principles which permits investigations into finding more www.coachinglife.com.au
PARALYMPIC EDITION objective solutions to these important issues. Our centre has several ongoing research projects that aim to develop defensible and robust methods to address these important challenges in classification.
COACHING, CLASSIFICATION AND RESEARCH As key stakeholders in the Paralympic movement, it is important that coaches stay up-to-date on the latest
Sean Tweedy has held the MAIC Research Fellowship in Physical Activity and Disability in the School of Human Movement Studies, University of Queensland since 1997. He conducts a teaching, research and community service program in adapted physical activity. One of Sean’s primary research interests is classification in Paralympic sport and he works with the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) in a number of capacities: as Principal Investigator for the UQ-IPC Paralympic Classification Research Partnership for Physical Impairments; as a Classification Educator for IPC Athletics; and a member of the IPC Classification Committee. Sean’s other research interest is in promotion of physically active behaviour among communitydwelling people with disabilities.
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developments in classification. A coach’s understanding of classification is important to the athlete for appropriate goal setting, interpreting qualifying times and for talent identification because these are all contextualised by the classification of the athlete. Furthermore, coaches who understand classification are well placed to assist athletes to choose a sport and classification system that suits their impairment profile.
Emma has a Bachelors degree in Human Movement Studies (Exercise Science) and an Erasmus Mundus Masters degree in Adapted physical activity from Katholieke Universiteit of Leuven, Belgium. Continuing with her interest in Disability sport, Emma returned to the University of Queensland to complete her PhD in classification in Paralympic Athletics. She is an internationally accredited classifier in Paralympic athletics. Emma’s research interests relate to the development of evidence-based classification in Paralympic sport, primarily athletics. Specifically Emma is working to develop assessment methods that can be used to classify the degree to which an athlete’s impairment impacts on their athletic performance.
Coaches can contribute to the integrity of classification in several ways. They can familiarise themselves with the testing procedures to ensure that the athletes understand the task requirements and to ensure that the athlete performs tests to their full capacity. In addition, coaches are in an ideal position to encourage athletes to take part in scientific research developing evidence-based classification systems that will benefit the whole Paralympic Movement.
Mark completed his PhD in Sport and Exercise Sciences at The University of Birmingham, England, and joined the School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences at the University of Queensland in 2009. Currently Mark is a Postdoctoral Research Officer in the IPC Classification Research and Development Centre which is located in the School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences at the University of Queensland. Mark’s primary research interest is the development and evaluation of evidencebased classification systems in Paralympic sport. Mark’s other research interest is the biomechanics of running and cycling including factors that are associated with performance and injury.
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IF YOU WANT TO LEARN ABOUT SPORT, TRY COACHING! PARA-ROWING – GORDON MARCKS, Senior Coach, Rowing Australia
I PLAYED RUGBY LEAGUE AS A KID BUT HAD A FAIRLY SERIOUS LEG BREAK EARLY ON AT AGE 11, WHICH RATHER ENDED THAT. I WASN’T PARTICULARLY SPORT-ORIENTED OR ATHLETIC THROUGH SCHOOL. AT 20, I WAS WORKING IN A BANK AND ONE OF THE TELLERS WHO WAS ABOUT THE SAME SIZE AS ME, 6’6, SAID, “I’M GOING TRAINING TOMORROW.” “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” I ASKED. “ROWING,” WAS THE ANSWER, AND I INVITED MYSELF ALONG.
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was then introduced to a bunch of guys my mate had been rowing with through school and out of Canberra Rowing Club, still rowing in the club scene. I decided I liked it and signed up. I was hooked from day one. It was around 1984 and three years later, after not doing any sport prior, I was rowing at the AIS. It filled a hole in my life at that stage and I was lucky with my physical abilities to be able to make progress. Like many young guys, I was looking for something to be fanatical about, and it happened to be rowing. I made the national team as a reserve in 1989. I kept rowing for another year or two, but coming into the 1992 Olympics I
had a choice. I could either complete my final year at university or defer to go row with someone in Melbourne. As an older, mature athlete, I was fairly independent and didn’t get an opportunity to go back into the AIS system which, arguably, is where you probably needed to be. So I made the choice to finish university and retire from competition.
COACHING: THE BEST WAY TO UNDERSTAND YOUR SPORT At that time, I’d been asked to coach a young local girl, which started me on the coaching path as I found it really rewarding. All of my own coaching experiences feed into how I coach, and what I think is right for that person www.coachinglife.com.au
PARALYMPIC EDITION
ONES TO WATCH The BRITISH are our main rivals at the moment. FRANCE is also very strong in some boat classes. You can also rely on the DUTCH to challenge us.
at that time. The vast majority is you finding your own coaching style around your personality. I’d been advised early on in my own rowing by Rusty Robertson (one of the leading coaches of the time) to get a coaching qualification. He said, “If you really want to learn about the sport and help your own rowing, get a coaching qualification and try coaching someone else.” It makes you go through the athlete thought processes when you’re trying to explain a concept to someone else. I really enjoy coaching. For me, it comes down to having something of value to offer someone else. To be able to do that as a profession, I feel very lucky and privileged. I’m still a bit reluctant to call it a career because I’ve done so many other things, but that’s the reality, I guess. The local girl I started coaching ended up being nationally competitive in a lightweight single, and then in 1992 made the lightweight four for Australia, eventually winning the World Championship in that boat class. While I didn’t have direct involvement by that stage, it was great to feel that www.coachinglife.com.au
I’d actually helped someone find their way in the sport.
THE PARA-ROWING PROGRAM: SMALL BUT MIGHTY I grew up in Canberra, and eventually found myself back there as Head Coach at the ACT Academy of Sport. I was there for nearly 12 years in that role, before the para-rowing opportunity presented itself through some discussions with Rowing Australia. I never hesitated about moving into that space because, for me, I don’t see rowers or people with impairments, I just see people who want to learn to row. I didn’t think about the distinction of para and non-para. You can apply stroke, pressure of stroke and stroke rate discussions to any crew. We don’t rely on any one source of athletes. We try to cast our nets very widely over, for example, AustralianParalympic Committee talent transfer or talent search opportunities, club and State Association ‘come and try’ days, and various state and national support organisations like the
I really enjoy coaching. For me, it comes down to having something of value to offer someone else. To be able to do that as a profession, I feel very lucky and privileged.
“Limbs for Life” organisation based in Melbourne. A lot of it comes down to physical and mental capacity to tolerate high performance sport and competition. One of the main things is how accessible the sport is to them, whether they can allocate the time and what their work circumstances are. We do our best to welcome them and provide opportunities for people to progress in rowing. COACHINGLIFE
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We have 3 main classifications: armsshoulder, trunk and arms, and leg-trunkarms. They are a functional assessment of how they move which then dictates what class they fall into. The formal classification process is managed by Rowing Australia, and if they go on to compete internationally, they have to be classified again. It’s rare to change classifications unless you have a degenerative condition. Para-rowing in Australia is quite a small sport, but growing. For our Paralympic team, we’ve got 8 athletes of a possible 9 going to Rio. Our leg-trunk-arms four that’s racing in Rio is a sign of our growth, given that in 2013 we had insufficient nominations to make a four, let alone be competitive. We’re still pushing for participation growth to make it a bigger sport overall. The US and Great Britain are super active with similar programs to us, and also tap into their military connections so it’s growing much faster there.
ONE TEAM For Rio, we’ve one guy in a single, two in a double, and the cox four. We’re coming into the competition as strong favourites as the single and double are
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both multiple world champions. The cox four is a new boat and are performing above expectations, so they’re not just participating by any stretch. There’s possibly 3 medals on offer for us. While everyone wants a medal outcome, focusing on the process orientation is very important otherwise you can get too fixated on the outcome. If you can row long, row hard and put in more strokes per minute, you’re going to go all right. Even at a world championship, the absolute outstanding highlight for me is always my relationship with the athletes, not the outcome.
When coaches first start out, it’s all about the result, but after a while that becomes tempered and moderated, partly through age and experience.
When coaches first start out, it’s all about the result, but after a while that becomes tempered and moderated, partly through age and experience. Good, bad or indifferent result, if the athlete has given it their best shot, I stand by them as a coach.
able-bodied and para, so it’s a great working environment.
We travel as one team with the Australian rowing team, except in an Olympics/Paralympics year. It’s amazing to be able to do that and it certainly brings a clear understanding of the high performance environment for those coming into para-sport. It’s also a positive outcome for the team culture. We all intermingle, rowers and coaches,
There are some equipment differences: the arms-shoulder and truck and arms classes have boats that are slightly wider and shorter, but the cox four race in an identical boat to able-bodied rowing. The boats themselves went to Rio from Europe in a container. We’ve shipped the boats out from Australia over the last 3-4 years to Europe, and they wait there for use in international competition. We’ve also got an identical boat that we train with in Canberra. They aren’t something you can fit on a plane! www.coachinglife.com.au
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PARALYMPIC EDITION
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AUSSIES ALL CLASS FOR 1ST RIO PARATRI PARATRIATHLON – Corey Bacon, Head Coach, Triathlon Australia
I ORIGINALLY CAME FROM A SPEED WATER SKIING BACKGROUND, COMPETING AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL IN THE SPORT. I STARTED WATER SKIING AT AGE 7 WITH MY FAMILY EVERY WEEKEND. HOWEVER, AT AGE 23, I HAD A SERIOUS ACCIDENT ON THE HAWKESBURY RIVER AND WAS HELICOPTERED TO HOSPITAL WITH SUSPECTED SPINAL INJURIES.
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he result was a badly crushed brachial plexus nerve, so my arm was temporarily paralysed for about 3 months. I was lucky not to sever the nerves as I hit the water so hard that it was like hitting a brick wall. I’d actually decided to retire after that race, given the high risk of the sport, and then the accident happened. It was clearly time to move on. After that I took up triathlons. I dabbled for many years, representing Australia twice at Age Group level, but I was not an elite competitor. I didn’t have a coach, so there was no one to tell me to slow down, or stop if I had an injury. I just kept plugging away. In my coaching life now, I’m able to share the wisdom I learned the hard way with my athletes and ensure they have adequate rest
and structured rehabilitation of injuries when needed. In 2007, I began coaching a couple of juniors. I got my qualifications and in 2008 took over the ACT Junior program, developing it into a highly respected program which produced a number of solid athletes. This really signalled the start of my coaching career. I took opportunities where they came and worked really hard to make success happen. I started my own squad, coaching 6-7 athletes. I didn’t have time for age groupers then as I also had a full time job with the Government, so I coached juniors during the week before and after work, working 60-70 hours a week in total. After a number of years, I started getting invited to national www.coachinglife.com.au
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ONES TO WATCH The BRITISH and AMERICANS are very strong and considered one of the 3 para-triathlon powerhouses including ourselves. They will be competitive in both Katie and Kate's classes. The Dutch also produce some amazing athletes. Watch out for our own Bill Chaffey, 5-time World Champion, in the PT1 class.
camps and training some very good athletes, including my first para-athlete.
TAKING ON PARA-ATHLETES Michael Milton is a dual Paralympian – summer (cycling) and winter (skiing). He wanted to do triathlon and came to talk to me. Normally, the coach interviews the athlete to see if they want to take them on, but it was the other way around with Michael! We worked well together and went to the Para World Championships in 2012. After this I was asked to run an AIS para-triathlon camp because paratriathlon was announced as a new sport for Rio, and Triathlon Australia were keen to get things started. A number of athletes from around Australia came to the camp, and it was an overwhelming experience because I hadn’t worked with athletes with such a range of different disabilities before. I ended up taking on another young guy called Jonathan Goerlach, who is a visually impaired athlete. He is the best visually impaired triathlete in the country, is the fastest 5km runner in the world for triathlon, and one of the fastest cyclists, but swimming was his downfall. We’ve worked on it intensively over the last few years and he’s now competitive on the world stage. www.coachinglife.com.au
In January 2015, we had the national championships, after which I gained more para-athletes: Katie Kelly, Kate Doughty, Emily Tapp, Nic Beveridge and Jack Swift. By the World Championships in September that same year, I had a world champion, Katie Kelly, in the visually impaired classification, No.2 in the world with Emily in the wheelchair class, and No.3 in the world with Kate Doughty in PT4 amputee class. In 7
months, we had 3 podiums at world level. Things changed dramatically from then. I’d already been named Head Coach for the para-triathlon team, but we had to find out what classes had been chosen to debut at Rio. Some athletes missed out, like Jonathan, as they chose not to run the male visually impaired class, but several others were able to qualify to compete when their classes got the Rio nod. COACHINGLIFE
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Coaching para athletes is challenging but very rewarding. It is a true partnership between coach and athlete and each athlete brings a unique set of physical limitations to the table. There are 5 classes in para-triathlon. PT1 are your wheelchair athletes, male and female, and PT5 are the visually impaired athletes. Between those, PT2, 3 and 4 are based on the severity of their disability. PT2 is the most severe, such as an above the knee amputee. PT3 often encompasses cerebral palsy and a few other disabilities. PT4 is usually below the knee amputation, or missing a hand, or similar. PT2s are usually slower than PT3s, and PT3s slower overall than PT4s. At Rio, for its first inclusion, they couldn’t run all 10 para-triathlon classes, so 6 classes were chosen to showcase the sport. This means the PT1 male wheelchair class was in but not the female class, both male and female PT2 got in, no PT3 classes at all, both PT4s did, and then only female PT5s (visually impaired) got in, but not males. Obviously we were disappointed that Jonathan didn’t get the opportunity to represent his country this time around, being a PT5 male, but we’re hoping that some of the omitted classes for Rio will instead make the 2020 Tokyo Games. What will happen after Rio is that the classes will change again inevitably,
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as there has been a lot of discrepancy surrounding the classifications for some classes. For example, Jack Swift who has a partial leg amputation is racing against guys who have two legs but are missing a hand. While Jack is the best leg amputee in the world, he just can’t compete with guys with two legs. It’s just not fair. No athlete competes just to make up numbers – they all want to do the best they can possibly do. Obviously classification is a work-inprogress. At least with visually impaired guys like Jonathan, the severity of blindness is factored into the class, where completely blind guys get a head start on those who have partial vision. It makes it fairer across the board. The para-athletes had to qualify for Rio selection by winning at the Australian Championships, winning the Oceania Championships or being on the podium at a World Paratriathlon Event. Katie Kelly qualified a spot for Australia because she won the World Championships, and is now selected to compete in the visually impaired class. Because of her visual impairment, Katie has to use a guide and rides a tandem bike. Her guide is none other
than Australian legend Michellie Jones, a multiple world champion and Olympic silver medallist herself, now age 46. Michellie also helps Katie with her training and we are so lucky to have her on board. From my squad, I also qualified Kate Doughty, Nic Beveridge and Jack Swift who recently were officially selected for the team.
DIFFERENCES TO ABLE-BODIED COACHING Coaching para athletes is challenging but very rewarding. It is a true partnership between coach and athlete and each athlete brings a unique set of physical limitations to the table. All the athletes still swim, bike and run. However, the PT1 class athletes, for example, are in a hand cycle and race chair so there are technical aspects surrounding these guys. There are obviously limitations around leg/ arm amputations as well. Visually impaired athletes have their own set of challenges as they have to work as a team with a guide who they are tethered to when swimming and running. These are the little bits and pieces you need to know and learn in terms of coaching and adaptations required. These athletes www.coachinglife.com.au
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work hard and I push them as I would my able-bodied athletes. Many of my Rio athletes are new to the sport of triathlon and like any new athlete, they are on a steep learning curve that they have to negotiate on the world stage. When we went to the 2015 World Championships, we equalled America for the highest medal count on their home turf. The year before we only won 1 medal, but at Chicago we took home 7. We’re now definitely one of the top nations in the world for para-triathlon. I hope I have contributed to this in the last couple of years. Getting funding is the biggest issue we have. A lot of athletes have to pay for themselves and require more equipment than other sports, but at the end of the day, many of the smaller parasports struggle for funding. Compared to the big sports like swimming and athletics, ours is only a small program. Crowdfunding is sometimes used or some athletes self-fund to help them achieve their goals, however we really need a corporate sponsor to get on board then we would be set. It would be fantastic if we had a Lottery arrangement like the British do.
MY COACHING JOURNEY As a coach, I’ve had mentors along the way, and Triathlon Australia has been fantastic. They’ve given me opportunities, such as the para Head Coach position, I’ve been on national camps and had development opportunities. Darren Smith had his elite squad training alongside us in Canberra in the lead up to the London Olympics, so it was great to rub shoulders with those guys. My coaching pathway has always been a little unique, as I’ve created and taken advantage of www.coachinglife.com.au
opportunity where I could. My goals are to put a junior on the World Junior team and to qualify an athlete for the World Championships in Hawaii, which I did this year. I also have athletes on the verge of World Cup starts so taking them to the next level is also a goal of mine. I’ve certainly learnt a lot as a coach in the para space and being part of the High Performance Program. Coaching at the High Performance level is hard work, challenging at times but very rewarding and I have had colleagues support me and back me along the way. I’ve got the knowledge from doing the sport, but competition knowledge alone doesn’t make you a good coach. Having worked with the highest government officials in security and client servicetype jobs for 20 years, I know that building and maintaining relationships with the athletes is key. Obviously I’ve done the coaching qualifications to get to this level, but it’s more about the experience of being around other coaches and getting handson experience. You learn from your athletes and from your mistakes. I’m not perfect, but that is okay. I’ve also had great success over the years and am constantly learning and growing as a coach. I’m a strong believer of
keeping things simple and adopting a common sense approach to make sure the athletes are in the best performance environment, training alongside other great athletes that add value to the program. I ensure we have great facilities, quality coaches and a daily training environment that promotes excellence. This is why our athletes are doing so well. A good coach will pick and choose things that will be right for their squad. I’m very passionate about what I do and I just want the best for my athletes. I want to build and develop athletes to world level. Key focuses for me are helping all my athletes achieve but mainly my junior elite and senior elites, some of which are overseas in Europe at the moment, and obviously my Paralympians. In regards to my Rio expectations, in the end it’s just another race. The athletes have to focus on the process and if they get it all right, then hopefully there’s a medal at the end of the finish line for them. They have worked really hard and I’m proud of what we have achieved in a really short time period. COACHINGLIFE
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IT’S NOT ALL SMOOTH SAILING
PARA-SAILING – GEOFF WOOLLEY, SKUD Coach, Australian Sailing
I’VE SAILED MY WHOLE LIFE. MY PARENTS WERE LIFELONG SAILORS AND MY DAD ALSO RACED. HE WAS MY FIRST COACH WHEN I STARTED RACING COMPETITIVELY AT 10 YEARS OLD, ORIGINALLY IN NEW ZEALAND, AND WENT TO MY FIRST INTERNATIONAL REGATTA AT 12 YEARS OLD.
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started in the Optimist class and moved up through the New Zealand junior and youth classes to the Olympic 470 class, where I just missed selection for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. In sailing, only one country per class can go, and we missed out by a couple of spots at the World Championships. I kept going for another year but after a bad showing at Worlds and missing out on funding, finishing up was a financial decision. I went to work in property and construction for a few years but really missed the sailing world too much. I’d kept sailing during this time, but not at highly competitive level. I wanted to get back into it full-time, so decided coaching was the best way to make a living through it. I’d been coaching throughout my whole sailing career from about age 16, coaching juniors, and had always enjoyed it so, 3 years ago, I decided to give it a crack. I used some contacts in Melbourne to try to get a job in Australia and received an
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opportunity with the Victorian Institute of Sport sailing program. This led to more national opportunities and then my current Paralympic role as of 2015 with the SKUD class.
COACHING INFLUENCES My property project management background has been a huge help for my coaching in understanding how to run meetings, write programs, meeting minutes and notes and the whole communication side. It has played a huge role in how I try to coach now. As a competitor, we had a lot of different coaches throughout our Olympic sailing without consistency, which was probably one of the problems. What I try to do is take the best things out of everyone that I come across, especially from a few standouts, and try to model myself on how they coach. In particular, I like Nathan Handley, who is a gold medallist coach and one of the most sought-after coaches in www.coachinglife.com.au
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ONES TO WATCH Our main competitors are the British, who we’ve faced the last couple of years at the World Championships, and recently the Polish have come into the mix, winning the last World Championships. It’s definitely made things interesting for the next few months.
the sailing world. He’s a great bloke for starters, doesn’t get emotional and supports you no matter what. From him, I have learnt to keep it enjoyable, relaxed and fun. He is very good at keeping everything very level-headed, calm, and would muck in with the sailors to help with boat work, logistics and so on. He was involved in the whole program and not afraid to do the hard work with us. He’s a great role model. Another one is Australian Daniel Smith, who sailed under the successful Australian 470 class program. I learned a lot technically from him, about how the Australians ran their training programs and drills, and their intensity of training. In the mid-2000s, there was a difference between the sailing in New Zealand and Australia. There were different techniques in use and a different focus: we were more worried about general boat speed, but the Australians were very focused on the mechanics of sailing the boat – boat handling, movement through the boat, setting the sails properly. This is probably why they were so successful in that era in the 470 class. www.coachinglife.com.au
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Our aspirations are to win a gold medal. Dan and Leisl are also the current defending gold medallists from 2012 London. I did a race coaching course in New Zealand, but I think the No.1 thing as a coach is that you’ve got to be a good sailor and able to get the respect of the sailors that you coach. Having results behind you is very important, I think. Most of my education has been ongoing with some of the senior coaches here in Australia.
SAILING IS SAILING, NO MATTER THE DISABILITY I had always coached able-bodied Olympic class and youth classes, never para. This opportunity with the Australian SKUD program is for only one year because sailing didn’t make it into the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics, which is a real shame. There’s some political stuff going on, and they haven’t enough
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nations involved at present, but they’re working to get it back on the program for 2024. The para program is just like any other sailing class. There are 3 Paralympic sailing classes – SKUD, 2.4m and Sonar – and we work really closely with the whole team, sharing information and having group briefings every morning. Dan Fitzgibbon, who I coach, is a quadriplegic from an accident in his 20s. He steers the boat from his seat in the middle of the boat by canting or tilting the seat on both sides. His SKUD class partner, Leisl Tesch, sits in front of him in another middle seat and controls every rope on the boat and all the sails, which is a really hard job. She’s incredibly busy on the
boat. The different in this to the other dinghy classes is that in those, you can move from side to side to transfer your weight to counteract the wind, whereas in the SKUD class, they’re locked in the middle. The boat can’t capsize due to the keel set up, but it does require different sailing. In terms of the actual sailing side of things, there’s no difference to Olympic class sailing. It has the same format. Coming into coaching for the Paralympics, I was slightly apprehensive, not knowing how it would work. Over time, I’ve learnt that there’s no significant difference. I don’t do anything different in my coaching. There is a bit more logistics and more organisation, but in terms of actual training and sailing, there’s no difference. In preparation we try to keep operating as we always have and not make a big deal of it. We do our normal training and planning. Both athletes, Dan and Leisl, are very experienced athletes – Liesl has been to 6 Paralympics, Dan 3 – and are lifelong sailors with more experience than me! www.coachinglife.com.au
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WILL IT BE GOLD AT RIO? I’m pretty excited! It will be cool just to experience the Olympics and to build my experience as a coach for the future. I would like to be a veteran of the Olympics one day, if my coaching career continues successfully. I missed out with my own sailing, so this is the second-best thing. The team are staying in hotels and apartments closer to Guanabara Bay than the official Olympic Village, so we only have a 1015 minute drive rather than an hour and a half. We will arrive on the 28th August, 14 days prior to racing, and will have work to do on the boat prior to the regatta getting it absolutely perfect. The biggest difference to an able-bodied Olympic coaching role, is that I do a lot of the boat work for the team. Equipment is a major challenge in the sailing world. We’ve got 3 boats we use around the world. Two boats are in Rio so that we can train when one’s being shipped around. We’ve been racing in Europe in one boat, training in Rio in another, and training in Australia in yet another. It requires a huge amount of organisation with sails, equipment www.coachinglife.com.au
and their custom made seating arrangements. We also have excellent support staff. Tim Lowe is a boat builder who has been with Dan for 10 years, travelling to all the regattas and gets the boat ready. He’s the rock of our SKUD team and a legend of the Paralympic team. It would be very hard to do this without his support. Our aspirations are to win a gold medal. Dan and Leisl are also the current defending gold medallists from 2012 London. However, Dan has always pointed out that it’s not all about medals and winning, it’s about trying to sail as well as they possibly can. That’s their real focus. We’re spending a lot of time in Rio before the Games because the Olympics are such an important event that no stone is left unturned. We’ve now been to Rio 3 times already to study the venue in detail. We’ve been training out of the venue and got to know the locals at the marina, who have been very helpful to us, so we’ve been generally well-received.
Unfortunately Leisl and our physio were mugged at gunpoint once in a busy park but thankfully just had their bikes stolen.
PARA-SAILING’S FUTURE PATHWAYS Dan was a competitive sailor prior to becoming quadriplegic, but some come to the sport fairly new after their accidents. It can be a challenge as the pathway is quite difficult from learning to sail up to Olympic level. This is something the sailing world is trying to work on, looking at what sort of boats and classes we can develop to make it more achievable to get to Paralympic level with no sailing background.
TOP TIP You’ve got to love what you’re doing, because then it doesn’t feel like a sacrifice. COACHINGLIFE
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SUPERFAST, SUPERPHYSICAL, SUPERCRASHES WHEELCHAIR RUGBY – BRAD DUBBERLEY, Head Coach, Australian Men’s Wheelchair Rugby Team (STEELERS)
I STARTED PLAYING WHEELCHAIR RUGBY AT 14 IN 1995. MY ACCIDENT HAPPENED BACK IN 1993 WHILE OUT BUSHWALKING IN BALLARAT. I SLIPPED AND FELL DOWN A CLIFF, ACROSS A ROAD AND DOWN ANOTHER EMBANKMENT, BREAKING 3 VERTEBRAE IN MY NECK AND DAMAGING MY SPINAL CORD. I WAS LUCKY THAT IT WAS WINTER – I LANDED FACE FIRST INTO WATER AND ALTHOUGH I HAD TO HOLD MY
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was also fortunate that my friends rolled my whole body over and didn’t try turning my neck, which saved me again. While doing rehab in the hospital, I saw the wheelchair rugby national championships. My family then moved from Victoria back to Sydney and I was keen to get back into sport. Rugby was appealing to me because I enjoyed the team and contact elements, such as I had with speedway, tennis and football pre-accident. I’d always been very active, playing any sport I could.
BREATH UNTIL MY FRIENDS COULD
MURDERBALL BEGINS
TURN ME OVER, THE ICY COLD
I started playing domestically in Australia, in the open competition against adults. It was only relatively new in Australia at the time, so there wasn’t a great deal of numbers. There’s still not great depth of numbers compared to countries like the USA and UK, but we’re very lucky to have the athletes that we do. The first World Championships were only in 1995, so as a sport, it is still quite new. When it first began in Canada, it was called Murderball, which was changed to
WATER STOPPED THE SWELLING IN MY NECK.
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bring it into the Paralympics. It is now wheelchair ‘rugby’ more due to the physical nature of the sport, rather than any other factor, given it is played on a basketball court with a volleyball. Over time, the sport has become more professional, faster and more physical. There are more chairs getting broken now! Even the men in the chairs are bigger and stronger. After a couple of years, I was a reserve for the Atlanta Paralympic team in 1996, then had a season in the USA before contesting with the Australian team at the World Championships in 1998. As an athlete, I went on to play both the Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004 Paralympics. I took on the Head Coach role for the Australian team at the end of 2006, after being a player/Assistant Coach through shoulder injuries in 2005, and it has been a great ride since then. Rio will be my 5th Paralympic Games and we have a great support team around us. Personally, I find coaching more rewarding despite being more time-consuming and stressful! It’s great when you see athletes and their www.coachinglife.com.au
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ONES TO WATCH The last Paralympics and World Championships have been battles between ourselves and Canada. The USA are very strong and have a great history with us, and Japan and the UK are coming up as well as very competitive teams.
families come along and you know you’ve had an impact on their lives, or the feeling you get putting together a great team of staff. It’s definitely inspiring. Only one of our athletes was born with a limb deficiency while all the others either had accidents or a form of cancer that led to amputations. We don’t seem to compete for athletes with the Wheelchair Basketball squads, as they tend to have more paraplegics and leg amputees, whereas ours are 3 or 4 limb defective. Often there are athletes out there trying other sports who don’t realise they could play rugby, and the trick for us is to find and transfer them.
Personally, I find coaching more rewarding despite being more timeconsuming and stressful! It’s great when you see athletes and their families come along and you know you’ve had an impact on their lives. not generally move classification. While classification is meant to even out the competition, athletes will work on their weaknesses to become as strong as they can. The sport was originally meant for quadriplegics, but now we’re getting a lot of quadriplegic amputees, or even different disability types which is exciting but also means that the classification system will be adapted as the sport changes. Classification systems are separate for each sport. Our 12 team athletes have specialised custom chairs for which we have to take spare parts to Rio as they get broken. Every team has a mechanic who will run out on court to change tyres or weld chairs back together off-court. Chair types are also evolving as the sport gets faster and more physical. Like car racing, chairs must be fitted with legal parts, be certain heights, have certain guards to meet requirements. Athletes
will often get knocked out of their chairs as heavy chair contact is allowed but not athlete contact. Sometimes athletes do get injured, but these are usually from over-use.
STRONG CHANCE FOR THE GOLD Our Rio preparation began even before London. While we have a core of athletes who have competed for 10 years or more, including some old teammates of mine, we needed to look at our newer athletes who would be around in 2016 and whether we had to find more, considering retirements. We’re already starting to prepare for Tokyo 2024. The team’s selection has been internally known and trained since late 2015, but not officially selected until the APC announcement in 2016. Performances still could have improved or had an upset, but it’s generally important to have some stability, to go
THE TECH SPECS: PLAYERS AND CHAIRS In Wheelchair Rugby, you have 4 players on the court at any time, adding up to a total of 8 points, with a total team of 12 athletes available to play. Your higher functioning athletes are worth 3.5 points, which ranges down to lesser functioning athletes of 0.5 points in 0.5-point increments. The combination on the court could be 3, 2, 2, 1 (4 players, 8 points total), which also ensures varying disability levels on the court at once. A player is classified 3 times over a 3-year period (domestic and international), which then becomes a permanent classification. Players do www.coachinglife.com.au
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ROB VAN ESCH / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
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Part of any sport is trying to predict the future and trying to get there before anyone else! If you always copy others, you’ll always be behind them.
through camps and be able to train as a team, without competing for positions last-minute. We would rather the athletes work together for a common cause than competing against each other for a spot in our lead-up training. Some athletes who missed out on Rio selection will be in the mix for the Tokyo team. Obviously they are disappointed, but the World Championships in 2018 will come up quite quickly and will be held in Australia. We won gold at the London 2012 Paralympics, and we feel capable of doing so again. We certainly have some strong opponents but if we perform to our own expectations and at the level we know we can play, we’ll be the team to beat. It’s important not to run off too much energy early through excitement, but we tend to balance each other between the newbies and old hands. We have two training camps prior to leaving – one on the Gold Coast, and one in Darwin. We then leave on the 6th September to have 8 days of training prior to our first game.
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STAYING AHEAD OF THE COMPETITION I’m always working on my evolution as a coach. If you think you know it all, you might as well stop. It’s part of the excitement to continue to learn, whether it’s in communication or tactics or otherwise. It’s good to look at different coaches and sports to see how they do things is very important, so having a good network of coaches is key, especially in seeking advice. For example, we train in the same facility as the Bombers [Essendon AFL team] and because we have some similar tactics, it helps to watch their training and coach interaction/communication with a view to improvising and innovating in our own game. Part of any sport is trying to predict the future and trying to get there before anyone else! If you always copy others, you’ll always be behind them. If you’re at the forefront, then your opponents are the ones trying to catch up. You can learn so much from other athletes as well as coaches. You can’t
be as selfish as a coach because you’re trying to build up a team. Even now, I’m coaching some of the people who were also my teammates, and the whole team has a really good relationship. The biggest thing in transitioning to coaching was that, as an athlete, you didn’t have to think too much about the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of performing. As a coach, you have to communicate this to the athletes, what to look for, how to perform, which was tricky to start with. I’ve had some great people around me. Part of being a coach is understanding your weaknesses and having the right people around you to compliment that. My assistant coach, Greg Smith, is big on strength and conditioning, and can train any athlete in the world to peak fitness for the job. I have great confidence in him, which then allows me to concentrate on coaching, as does the support from the APC. It means we can get the best out of each other, as well as the team.
TOP TIP Know your strengths and weakness, and build a team around you that compliments these. This will give you a better shot at being successful overall.
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PARALYMPIC EDITION
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SEARCHING FOR NEW STARS PARA EQUESTRIAN – JULIA BATTAMS, National Performance Director (Dressage & Para Equestrian), Equestrian Australia I’VE RIDDEN SINCE I WAS 4 YEARS OLD. I CAME FROM A NON-HORSEY FAMILY WHO HAPPENED TO LIVE NEXT DOOR TO A GIRL WHO HAD RIDING LESSONS AT THE LOCAL RIDING SCHOOL.
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Photo: Guillaume Béguin
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O N E S TO W ATCH T
he BRIT ISH are massive a strength in sport an t d the DU he TCH are also coming up very quickly. After th a t , I’d like to think there’s us!
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started there and never really grew out of it! I tried a few other things throughout my career, going to university and started teaching, but nothing really grabbed me. I always gravitated back to horses. I’ve now been coaching since I was 18. I was an active competitor from 8-21 through my local Pony Club, then as a natural progression as an older member of the club, moved into assisting with coaching the junior riders. It developed into private coaching and I went overseas to train in Holland for 3 years for more experience in the hub of the dressage world. Coming back, I started my own business, Balmoral Equestrian Centre in Victoria, in 1989, and have been coaching riders and competing up to Grand Prix level ever since. I had begun coaching a few athletes with disabilities privately when the role managing the para equestrian high performance program came up with Equestrian Australia. One of the riders talked me into putting my name down and I’m really glad I did – it’s a decision that constituted a big change of direction for my career. www.coachinglife.com.au
My role involves managing the High Performance for both able-bodied and para equestrian dressage. I began the role following the 2008 Beijing Olympics in 2009, and the able-bodied program accounts for 20% of the work while the para program accounts for the remaining 80%. There’s not really a clear division, as part of the objective of the role is to integrate the two disciplines, which I take very seriously. Whatever program we put in place has to work for both sectors of the sport, which does ultimately benefits both para and able-bodied.
TALENT IDENTIFICATION When we do talent identification for para equestrian, by knowing what classification is required – Class IA through to IV – we can go to ablebodied competitions and identify athletes who are currently competing in the able-bodied sphere but are eligible to compete para equestrian classes as well. Lisa Martin is one of those, who has been selected for the Australian Paralympic Team on her horse to compete in Grade IV, and is also on the national high performance squad for able-bodied dressage.
My coaching doesn’t differ between an able-bodied and a para athlete. We focus very much on what they can do, not what they can’t. Often riders will confuse para equestrian with the national Riding for the Disabled (RDA) program, however para equestrian is a competitive discipline restricted to functional disabilities rather than intellectual, unlike RDA which is more of a therapeutic program for all disabilities and is non-competitive except for Special Olympics classes. In the para classes, for Grade IA, the horse only performs in walk, Grade IB is mostly walk and some trot, Grade II includes some canter, Grade III has all 3 paces and some lateral movements, and Grade IV is the approximate equivalent of an able-bodied MediumCOACHINGLIFE
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You can learn so much just by talking to other coaches about how they think and process things. How to encourage a talented athlete when the sport gets tough. level competition with some higher movements allowed. Some of the Grade IV athletes are incredible and compete at the top level, Grand Prix, against able-bodied athletes very competitively. It’s a very professional and high-level sport now.
CHALLENGE YOURSELF My coaching doesn’t differ between an able-bodied and a para athlete. We focus very much on what they can do, not what they can’t. If there’s a limb or strength and coordination deficiency, my approach is to find a way to do what we need. I very rarely discuss what they can’t do. Essentially, it’s still dressage and the horses still have to perform the same way and at the same standard of movement as in able-bodied competition. We’re still looking for the same quality of paces and accuracy of riding. When I start with a new athlete, I will ask them outright what their limitations are in respect to strength or flexibility or similar so I know what I’m working with, but that conversation is never had again. Instead, we are mostly focused on how the horse is going. You do have to be a little more inventive with the para athletes to create compensating aids for the horse. For example, if a para-rider has a short arm or can’t hold the rein correctly to give the horse the correct signals to perform a movement, then you need to invent a new way to give that signal to the
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horse and have the horse understand it correctly. It can be quite challenging as a coach, as you’re trying to create a situation where the athlete and horse perform as if there was no disability.
about how they think and process things. How to encourage a talented athlete when the sport gets tough. It’s about the emotional component, not just the technical.
As a coach, I think it’s vital that you always challenge yourself to grow. I’m part of the AIS Podium Coach program which involves working with other podium-level coaches from a range of sports and is very empowering. It involves learning about your own emotional attachment to the sport and how you manage not only the athletes but your peers and other coaches. It’s been one of the best things I’ve ever done. Taking on the role in 2009, I didn’t realise I’d been so insular and stuck in my sport, but now I’ve realised how similar coaching is, regardless of the discipline or sport. The other sports have similar issues around performance, expectations, sport science, even the same pitfalls and learning to manage your inner critic. If you don’t look outside your own sport, you don’t realise that everyone else is in the same situation. You can learn so much just by talking to other coaches
FINDING THE RIGHT EQUINE PARTNER Para equestrian athletes are competing on world class horses, the same as able-bodied. I have a part in finding suitable equine partners for the paraathletes, with the aim to compete at the Paralympics. Occasionally a para-rider will find a horse outside of my input, but I try to encourage the athletes to run those decisions past me. I’m very comfortable putting those combinations of horse and rider together, as you learn what judges are looking for at each classification level, and what each disability is able to perform with best. With a paraplegic athlete, for example, the horse can be a little more solid in the contact with the rein as they have generally good use of their upper body, but an athlete with advanced multiple sclerosis or another similar disability that means www.coachinglife.com.au
A good example is the London 2012 gold medallist in the Grade IB para equestrian competition, Joann Formosa, whose horse was retired after the Paralympics and needed a new mount to contest selection for Rio. In her class, the horse mostly performs in walk, so we needed to find another horse with a world class walk. At an international level competition in Sydney, I heard a horse walking behind me who had a fantastic, very clear, purposeful walk. That horse, GB Winchester, competes at Grand Prix with Gary Lung, who was then kind enough to give Joann the opportunity to contest the Rio selection events with his horse in the hope of making the Australian team.
‘WHAT IF’ SCENARIOS I think we have a very good chance of bringing home several medals if everything goes to plan. The athletes selected are: Sharon Jarvis (Grade III), Emma Booth (Grade II), Katie Umback (Grade III) and Lisa Martin (Grade IV). We’re lucky to have such great support and funding from the Australian Paralympic Committee for our paraathletes, and from Equestrian Australia as well, particularly as it is a medalpotential program. In preparation for an event that not everything goes exactly to plan, we run through a lot of ‘what if’ scenarios prior to Rio. We practice emergency situations, if the warm up time before competition changes, and more. We also look at how the athletes can manage situations that affect their mental and emotional state. You’ve got to have in mind what that actual situation is, and we focus on what we do know and learn to be resilient www.coachinglife.com.au
with those that we don’t. It’s a learned skill that we work a lot on. We have access to the APC’s psychologist, and part of my role is to set a daily training environment around each athlete that includes having a sport psychologist in their own team is a critical part. I don’t like to do a ‘what if’ scenario around under-performing, as I feel this creates the wrong mindset. We’re very much focused on positive performance. Before Rio, we have a dressage team staging camp in Aachen in July, then fly into Rio on the 3rd August. I then fly to Holland after the dressage team performance is complete for the paraequestrian staging camp and then to Rio with that team. Being away for large amounts of time is part of the role, so it’s a matter of setting structures in place within your family life and business that allows you to do this. A real highlight for me in my position as a para coach, has been the London 2012 Paralympics, where for the lower grades with the greatest disabilities, the crowd did not clap, they waved to avoid startling the riders’ horses. It is amazing that you can have a crowd of 10,000 people, silent, and just waving their applause to show their appreciation and understanding.
Photo: Guillaume Béguin
they’ve got minimal use of their fingers, they will need a horse softer in the rein and connection. Once you understand what style of horse is going to suit that athlete and their abilities, then you can start putting suitable combinations together.
Photo: Guillaume Béguin
PARALYMPIC EDITION
TOP TIP Talk to other people and really listen to them. Develop a questioning technique where you really understand what they’re communicating. Really engage with other coaches and allow yourself to learn from them.
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THE LEARNING CURVE OF ELITE COMPETITION
PARA-ARCHERY – STEPHEN JENNISON, Coach Mentor, Archery Australia
I FIRST PICKED UP A BOW AT 7 YEARS OLD – 57 YEARS AGO! BACK IN THE LATE 50S IN THE UK, EVERY KID HAD A BOW IN THEIR HANDS THAT THEIR DAD HAD MADE, BECAUSE YOU MADE YOUR OWN ENTERTAINMENT. LIKE ALL KIDS, I START DOING ALL SORTS OF SPORTS, PLAYING RUGBY FOR MOST OF MY EARLY LIFE, AND DID ARCHERY FOR A WHILE. ARCHERY BECAME SOMETHING TO DO AS PART OF THE SCHOOL’S PROGRAM, RATHER THAN BEING PERFORMANCE DRIVEN.
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came over to Australia at age 21 in 1973. Funnily enough, I’d come 12,000 miles to meet my wife who was from Scotland! Back then I was playing rugby league and competition squash while she was doing netball. One day, we decided to try to find a sport we could do together and heard about an archery club nearby in Sydney. I’d play touch football on a Sunday morning, rush home to change, then spend the afternoon relaxing at archery as a hobby. But because of the way my wife and I are, we both got a bit competitive about it! I had to stop for a while, as I damaged my elbows playing football, but I was very involved and interested in developing skills in other people. I started getting into the coaching accreditation programs to lift my qualification level in 1980. By the end of the 80s, I got involved with the National High Performance program which brought archery and training camps to Canberra. I wanted
to apprentice myself as a coach to develop my skills. From there, I moved to state coach and then got involved as a national accreditation director, putting together the government plan to work out what Australia would need to do to win a medal in Archery if we got the Olympic Games in 2000. Once the plan was put together, I thought I’d throw my hat in the ring for national coach and was appointed. Part of my task was to identify the best coaches in the world, and I went to Korea to bring back a coach – Kisik Lee. By 1997, it got too much for me as a one-man band, so I left that role and just coached locally.
MENTORING BOTH ATHLETE AND COACH The program continued and we won the gold medal in 2000 and a bronze at the 2004 Athens Olympics. While we had a Paralympic team in Sydney, we didn’t do anything about it in 2004 and 2008. More recently, Jonathan Milne www.coachinglife.com.au
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O N E S TO W ATCH There’s
Amnarj Tanongrattana / Shutterstock.com
some ve ry confi shooter dent s aroun d, partic the GER u larly MANS a nd the U At the e S A. nd of th e day yo get too u can caught up in wh compet at your ition is t rying to can’t co do. You ntrol tha t. You ca prepare n only the bes t you ca n.
qualified an archery place for Australia for the Paralympics. I was approached to see if I would be interested in being the Paralympic coach based on my previous experience and was appointed to the job. It soon became apparent that we only had the one athlete position at the Paralympics and that Jonathan already had a personal coach. Regardless of experience levels, it seemed to me that the ideal situation, to maximise performance at the Games, would be to have his personal coach continuing to work with him with myself overseeing. I put this proposal to the board who were very responsive, which allowed me to become a coach-mentor to Jonathan’s coach, Richie. It’s probably the best thing we ever did because we can develop both Richie and Jonathan simultaneously. www.coachinglife.com.au
Richie works with several athletes and is as driven as Jonathan to become the best in his field, as a coach. He’s looking for opportunities and has been considered nationally for development going forward. He’s lucky to be actually employed as a coach, as many of us are volunteers, and is able to schedule his programs around Jonathan. My involvement with Jonathan is around skill acquisition, and working with Richie to enhance his skills in overall coaching management. Working with a local club or national level is one thing, but going to a major international event like the Games is a completely different environment. Because of my experience, I’m able to help ensure both Richie and Jonathan are as prepared as possible. There’s a lot of administrative paperwork that I assist with, especially to allow Richie a clear path to focus. I help him develop
a more scientific approach to decisionmaking, ensuring those decisions are based on real data and evidence rather than just gut feeling. Jonathan is extremely receptive in regards to things that may enhance his performance. It’s not just skill acquisition, but also learning to be more professional in the way we go about tracking performance. It’s a great environment.
PARAS ON PAR WITH THE WORLD’S BEST Para-archery is a small sector of an already small sport. There are people at different disability levels but very few at the high performance level. Because of this, they all shoot with their able-bodied counterparts, shooting the same distances. There are some considerations in regard to their level of disability and how it affects what they can do. For example, stability on the shooting line is affected, as a lot of athletes have limited or no core stability. In this case, there are rules depending on the athlete’s classification as to how much strapping they are allowed. Also, while they are allowed breaks for lunch and so on, they may be shooting at a tournament for 4-6 hours, with shooting brackets up to an hour long where they have to stay stationary on the shooting line – rain or blistering hot sun. COACHINGLIFE
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Working with a local club or national level is one thing, but going to a major international event like the Games is a completely different environment. There are also special recovery considerations which ensure we have good strategies for mental and physical fitness, and protecting them as much as we can. These are things you wouldn’t normally have to do as much with an able-bodied athlete. However, the gear is the same as anybody uses in the world championships, and the performance level isn’t very much different either. Paralympic archers can also compete in the Olympics archery events. There are two bows that are in use for the Paralympics: compound and
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recurve. In the Olympics, they are only allowed to shoot with the recurve bow, as the compound bow has additional pulleys. Part of Jonathan’s preparations has been to shoot in every able-bodied competition he can, so his benchmark is against the world’s best. He ranks in the top 4 or 5 in Australia in the able-bodied rankings on any given day. Because Jonathan is 6’9, he draws a long bow with an extremely long draw length. We recently took him to China to compete; to experience and understand what’s involved at that level of competition as preparation for Rio. He shot a 685/720, when the world record is 717/720. We don’t want to put too much expectation on him as far as additional pressure, but he’s capable of putting in an excellent performance and if things go well, is definitely in medal contention. We’ve strategies to maximise performance in the heat, because athletes in chairs don’t have the same cooling mechanisms that we have. Our muscles pump blood around, but they’re not using their legs at all.
Part of my role is also to look ahead to Tokyo for 2020. Hopefully Jonathan will be one of the mainstays for that program and team. I’m also on the committee putting together plans for talent identification. The APC have been incredible with their level of support – they’re all about how they can help you. In the end, our job is to ensure that when Jonathan goes out to his match at the Paralympics, that he’ll be able to look back and say there’s not one thing he could have done better in his preparation.
TOP TIP A coach needs to have aspirations, as an athlete does. They have to be driven to improve their performance, their proficiency and skill sets. You need to devote yourself to try to achieve your goals and be able to have life balance, ensuring that the people around you are involved in the journey as well.
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A FAMILY CULTURE FOSTERS RESULTS PARA TABLE TENNIS – ROGER MASSIE, National Coach (Paralympic Program), Table Tennis Australia
I STARTED PLAYING TABLE TENNIS CASUALLY AFTER SCHOOL ON A TABLE THEY HAD, THEN BEGAN PLAYING COMPETITIVELY WHEN I MOVED TO HOBART AT AGE 15. I ALWAYS HAD A PASSION FOR THE SPORT AND IT WAS QUITE COMPETITIVE DUE TO THE POPULARITY OF RACQUET SPORTS IN THOSE DAYS – BADMINTON, SQUASH, TENNIS AND TABLE TENNIS.
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hile competitive, it played more for enjoyment. I worked my way up the grades, also playing grade cricket concurrently, without much in the way of training or structure. I even still play today in the veteran’s league. As my cricket career wound down, I found myself as the Assistant Coach at my club. I wanted to continue coaching but also with my other passion – table tennis. I did my Level 1 qualification in the late 80’s, and progressed from there. The first person I ever coached was a person in a wheelchair, so I had a fairly early introduction to coaching in the para world! I found it an exciting challenge, as although I’d played for a long time and done my coaching courses, it was something completely new and had a lot of innovation.
Paralympic sport was just starting to become semi-professional, so I became a bit of a forerunner. If you went on international trips with the team, the coach had to double as a carer, which also gave me an insight into the daily needs and challenges that a person with disability faces. Now, the sport is much more professional and a coach is a coach. I also now coach some able-bodied people through my local club as well as coaching school children and beginners, as I believe it is important to maintain contact with grass roots level coaching..
11 CLASSES TO CONTEND Your coaching needs to take into account a person’s disability. In some areas, they may not be able to perform COACHINGLIFE
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CHINA, KOREA and FRA NCE For the Aussies : Meliss Tapper ( a Class 1 0) and Sam von Einem ( Class 1 1)
Our biggest challenge will be China! They went very professional in a short amount of time with a dedicated training centre just for people with disabilities, where they play fulltime as professionals. the same functions as an able-bodied person, so you look at the assets they have and work with those. A lot of things will still cross-over. There are 11 classes in para table tennis. 5 wheelchair classes, with 1 being the most profound disabilities of quadriplegia and similar, through to class 5 where they can be quite agile in the chair. Classes 6-10 are standing athletes, where 6 has the most disability and 10 the least. For example, Melissa Tapper is a Paralympic table tennis player of Class 10, who is also an Olympian as she can compete with the best in Australia,
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able-bodied or otherwise. Class 11 is for people with an intellectual disability. We tend to have a lot of Class 6s and 8s, with a few wheelchair athletes. I’d like to have a squad that contained all classes if possible. When playing in a wheelchair in the lower classes, the chair itself is stationary, so the athlete can only reach across the table with their upper body and arms. Having long arms can be an advantage!
OUR TEAM FOR RIO For our Rio team, we have Daniella Di Toro (Class 4, female) at her 5th Paralympics after switching from
Tennis, Barak Mizrachi (Class 8, male), Melissa Tapper and Andrea McDonnell (Class 10, female) and one Class 11, Samuel von Einem. Each athlete has individual coaches as they are spread around the country, so I keep in contact through camps and Skypetype systems with both athlete and coaches. Geographical distance is just one disadvantage of being in Australia, compared to European or Asian countries. I go to Rio as the Head Coach of the program, without any athletes specifically of my own. This is my 3rd Paralympics, after 2000 Sydney and www.coachinglife.com.au
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2012 London, where I was Head Coach as well. The Rio environment may be a little challenging with security, although we’re not too concerned being inside the Athlete’s Village. Our competition venue is an existing venue that is only a few minutes away from the Village, which is very fortunate. Our biggest challenge will be China! They went very professional in a short amount of time with a dedicated training centre just for people with disabilities, where they play full-time as professionals. Our team work or study full-time and train as much as they can, by comparison. Overall, the 3 strongest countries are China, Korea and France.
PARA SPORT AND THE FAMILY MENTALITY We’re hopeful that the team will do reasonably well as a few of our athletes are ranked in the world’s top 10. We aim for our athletes to play their best and support the team. Unfortunately the personal coaches can’t also attend, so it will be myself and Assistant Coach Alois Rosario overseeing the team due to limited accreditations for team www.coachinglife.com.au
personnel available nor is it financially possible. The coaches are encouraged to stay in touch with their athletes through Skype, Facebook and other ways, so everyone is aware of what’s happening and remains part of the journey. Good results are contributed to by everybody in some form or another, including parents and partners. Our Australian Paralympic Committee do a great job at encouraging all Paralympic sports to work together as a team. We regularly meet to exchange information, and even athletes through talent transfer. Dani Di Toro is one example of talent transfer from Tennis through to Table Tennis, and is able to use her experience to mentor younger athletes coming through. It gives a real family/team culture so that when we go away to an event like Rio, the athletes have a genuine interest in other sports results rather than being focused only on their individual sports. The success of any team relies on everybody working together for a similar goal. This family mentality continues post-Paralympics, and is fostered by our athlete team captains.
5 TOP TIPS 1
You need to be enthusiastic and passionate about what you’re doing.
2 3
Surround yourself with good people.
Learn as much as you can, including from other coaches and sports.
4
Have an open mind and don’t just coach by the manual. Use innovation.
5
Be an individual, and treat everybody as individuals.
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ONE GIANT LEAP FOR INCLUSIVITY
I WAS BORN IN AUCKLAND, NZ IN 1984. MY GRANDMOTHER LIVED ACROSS THE ROAD FROM EDEN PARK, THE MAIN STADIUM IN AUCKLAND, SO I WATCHED CRICKET GAMES OVER HER FENCE, DEVELOPING A LOVE FOR THE GAME.
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started playing junior level for a club, then moved into representative cricket which allowed me to play as an overseas amateur in the off-seasons – Scotland, West Midlands (UK), and eventually Australia. A mate had been doing the same as a senior playing for Wynnum Manly Cricket Club in the Brisbane Grade Competition, and invited me to join him. I played 2 seasons of premier cricket in Queensland, learning the hard graft Australian way of playing. I was keen to understand why Australian cricket was so strong and what made it work. I’d always done little pieces of coaching in Auckland and the UK, more oneon-one or small age group sessions. As soon as I’d moved to Brisbane, I got my coaching and fitness trainer qualifications done, intending to upskill myself through the networks of premier cricket, sponging snippets of information off people like ex-Australian One Day player Ben Laughlin and all the other great players at the club. Every premier club has a different culture
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Photo: Sarah Matray
ALL ABILITIES CRICKET – HUSSAIN HANIF, Coach, Yarraville Cricket Club
and coaching style related to its history, which you have to adapt to. In Sydney, Anthony Clark was one of the coaching leaders in the pack who has been very influential on myself and others. Ash Gannon, an Essendon Cricket Club coach in Victoria, also took me under his wing to learn the coaching ropes. Compared to Scotland and Auckland, the skill sets were very similar however the Australians have a hard nature of training, such as: • batsmen with no pads playing spin balls to understand how to play the ball better • training hard with a competitive edge rather than like a social session • a huge depth of players fighting for few opportunities at premier level • more sport science to develop better skills and players It’s a great time to be involved in coaching and playing as it’s evolving very quickly. www.coachinglife.com.au
PARALYMPIC EDITION JUMPING IN WITH BOTH FEET As a now club coach at Yarraville Cricket Club and a junior coordinator, I received a few calls from intellectually disabled cricketers who couldn’t get a game with any regular sides for various reasons. With the passion I have, I was determined to help one way or another. At the end of the day, it’s less people playing cricket – Australia’s No.1 summer sport. Cricket Australia had a national disability cricket strategy, and under Cricket Victoria’s All Abilities action plan, expanded it through Victoria first and then throughout Australia. Melbourne All Abilities Cricket Association (MAACA) is Australia’s first All Abilities Cricket Association for people with intellectual disabilities.
The key for me was to understand the disability community and tap into the existing disability networks, such as FIDA – the AFL’s Football Integration Development Association for all abilities football players – to see if those participants would be interested in turning to cricket for the summer seasons. From there, it’s about being inclusive as part of a society/ club, building their fitness base, and ultimately build more clubs as it grows. Yarraville Club in the western suburbs is a melting pot of cultures and backgrounds. There are refugees, low socio-economic and migrant backgrounds, and a high proportion of overweight and diabetic residents in the surrounding areas. The club understood who their community were, what was required to run it, and I was the man who put my hand up as a volunteer with a lot of great helpers. I utilise those negative points to create a cricket program that is very inclusive.
We run with club support but for me it has never been about money – it’s been a way for me to give back to cricket. Being part of a club is something massive, and gives you a lot of life lessons and learned responsibility, even simply being on time for games. We run with club support but for me it has never been about money – it’s been a way for me to give back to cricket. For myself, it’s provided me an opportunity to mix with other coaches and other sports and sporting bodies such as Tennis Australia who are looking to improve their programs in this area.
INCLUSIVITY AND STRUCTURE IS KEY We were able to create two teams for the competition, one for each grade: Ten Over Tonk for low-functioning players and focused on non-competitive participation with a softer ball, and a competitive Super League which
Photo: Sarah Matray
So, I contacted Cricket Victoria and found out about All Abilities cricket, then utilised their cricket network to put the message out, and over 60 people turned up to the Western suburbs for the first day/trial. It was massive. It showed Cricket Victoria and the public around those areas that these people want to play the game. it provided an opportunity. I had some help from Lorraine Woodman, who ran programs for people with disabilities through
Lord Taverner and an all abilities indoor cricket club in the Western suburbs for people who wanted to try. We connected and spread the news of our plans to the disability groups to advertise, and the response was remarkable.
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Photo: Sarah Matray
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has 30 overs, full cricket equipment and provides a pathway for players to become an Australian All Abilities cricketer. Both grades have their own rules and playing conditions to suit the ability of the players. We have different types of intellectual disabilities: Down syndrome, autism, Fragile X and Prader-Willi syndrome, for which I needed better understanding about their characteristics, how they could be best served with their training schedules, and in creating routines to follow. Their IQs are usually below 70, their disabilities ranging from low to severe, and they may have difficulties learning and processing different components. But the main key has always been creating an inclusive environment where they all understand each other and understand clearly their role in a team. Teaching style, rules and equipment have been the key components to creating this. On a wider scale impact on quality of life, at lot of players have even returned to study through seeing their teammates do so capably. Their self-esteem has increased. Part of an intellectual disability can be a lack of decision-making skills and
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poor short term memory, alongside general literacy and numeracy skills. When you’re playing cricket, if you’re batting you’ve only a few seconds to make a decision when the ball is coming at you, or if you’re bowling you’ve got a certain area where you need to put the ball. Therefore, we break the skills down to keep the instructions short and concise with limited numbers, and create a wellstructured training environment with a big whiteboard of instructions for what each player is doing for the session. It requires constant adaption through checking with the players what is and isn’t working. I look at each player, what skills they have, what they lack, and what we can improve on for the next session.
BREAKING DOWN SOCIAL BARRIERS Even to begin with, I had a long-term goal to build up at least 2 players over a 3-year period to get onto the Australian team. The plan was to first get representation on the Victorian team, then to play in the Big Bash with either the Melbourne Renegades or Stars, and then on to playing for Australia. Our team was unbeaten throughout the
last season and won the Grand Final. We were then invited to the Victoria carnival for both country and metro teams, where we were again unbeaten, winning the carnival on the last ball. Four of our players were selected for the Melbourne Renegades to play Big Bash and during that time, I was given the coaching role for the Renegades as I was in the western suburbs. The All Abilities Bash is pre-game to the Big Bash game. We played the Melbourne Stars and beat them convincingly, taking out the first ever inaugural All Abilities Big Bash Cup. Those 4 players went on to play for Victoria. It proved that they had skill development and that there was a pathway for others to follow and pursue. Our wicket keeper was even able to play in regular club competition where they bowl at 130km/hr. I ended up winning the Senior Men’s Cricket Coach of the Year and overall Coach of the Year against other mainstream Cricket Victoria and premier club coaches, which has given me the opportunity to spend some time with the Australian team and opened the door on some other coaching positions. It’s also put All Abilities cricket in the limelight, which is brilliant. In the future, I would like to see more awareness and club inclusiveness. Social attitudes can often be more difficult to overcome than physical ones. It’s about breaking the barrier and creating an environment where every person with a disability has the confidence to pick up a bat or a ball and have a go, no matter their ability. It shows that good attitudes on a community club level can lead to great things. While many clubs don’t currently offer this kind of opportunity, it may come down to lack of knowledge in how to run it. The state bodies will be pushing this out more and more. At the end of the day, it’s about getting more people off the couch and out there being active. www.coachinglife.com.au
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WE NEED MORE HUNGER WHEELCHAIR BASKETBALL – TOM KYLE, Head Coach, Australian Women’s Wheelchair Basketball team (Gliders), Assistant Coach, Australian Men’s Wheelchair Basketball team (Rollers)
I STARTED PLAYING CRICKET AND FOOTBALL IN MY YOUNGER YEARS IN COOMA, NEAR THE SNOWY MOUNTAINS. BUT BECAUSE THE SUN GOES DOWN AT 4PM, YOU CAN’T TRAIN FOR THOSE SORT OF THINGS, SO I WENT INDOORS AND STARTED PLAYING BASKETBALL. BECAUSE WE WERE VERY CLOSE TO CANBERRA, WE PLAYED A LOT OF REPRESENTATIVE BASKETBALL THERE AS CURTAIN RAISERS TO THE OLD CANBERRA CANNONS.
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moved to Wollongong for university and got my first real coach, Adrian Hurley, who happened to be an Australian coach and a lecturer at the university. I never quite made the NBL unfortunately, but I represented at the second tier underneath. They had a training team for the NBL team at that stage, and I represented for Shellharbour. I started coaching at 17 for the representative basketball side at Cooma, then at university part of my role was as coach for the university basketball team. That’s where I really got into it, because I was studying a Physical Education teaching degree. That complimented things, and obviously being around the likes of Gordon McLeod who was the Australian point guard at that stage in 1979 allowed me to pick up a lot of coaching knowledge. While the terminology’s
changed from those days, the essence of the game is still very pertinent today. You’re still trying to create time and space to get the job done, whether it’s a wheelchair game or able-bodied. At Wollongong, I was Head Coach of the women’s team, and a player-coach for the men’s as Adrian didn’t do the competitions so I was able to run the team there. It started to introduce me to the elite side of coaching. Afterwards, I moved to Brisbane for a job at a private school to run their GPS Basketball program and do part-time teaching. GPS basketball is quite big in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. I was there for 2.5 years, and during that time also got involved with coaching in Brisbane at a junior national level. I had the Brisbane U14 representative team, which ended up winning the state competition and then the Australian Club U14 Championships. On that team www.coachinglife.com.au
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I’m quite a cerebral coach. I like to work things out and have people test me. I don’t like doing things just because it’s been done in the past. was a little 9-year-old fellow called CJ Bruton. He went on to play many games for Australia, a 2-time Olympian, Commonwealth Gold Medallist, Australian Boomers captain and a 6-time NBL champion. He’s now an assistant coach to the Brisbane Bullets NBL team.
CHANCES AND OPPORTUNITIES In 2008, a colleague of mine at work whose son is in a wheelchair, said, “Would you coach wheelchair
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basketball?”. That led to me starting to coach the Queensland Wheelchair Basketball team, just before the Paralympics invasion. At first, I thought it was going to be harder than it was, but the game is still the same. You still play it on the same sized basketball ring and courts, still have to move the ball and transition up and down the court. There’s a few differences, such
as where you have to play defence backwards rather than fronting up to the player. I’ve always played a fairly up tempo game, so I got my Queensland team playing the same way. At the time, in wheelchair games, they were playing very negative zone defences. I was fortunate to get a chance to coach against the Western Australian team, which has the Australian Coach,
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Ben Ettridge. Straight after that series of 3 games, Ben asked me to come along to an Australian camp with them as a guest coach, so I was able to start attending a couple of Australian camps. One day I got a phone call from Ben to say that the team were heading over to Italy and Manchester for a tournament but the Assistant Coach, Craig Friday, couldn’t attend. Would I be interested? I had to quit my job – running a multimillion-dollar IT project for Suncorp – to take the opportunity to go overseas on my first foray as an Australian coach. From there, Ben took me on as a second assistant. At the 2010 World Championships, we won the gold medal, after which Ben asked me to be involved with the U23 program. In 2012, once again Craig couldn’t make the London Paralympics, so I was the main assistant at those Games as well, where we won silver. It was a bit of a gut-wrencher, losing the last game, and we’d set ourselves fairly high expectations. A very strong Canadian
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team got over the top of us in the final, but it was an awesome experience playing in front of 15,000 people at the O2 Arena.
QUALIFICATION HEARTACHE In 2013, an opportunity came up to coach the Australian women’s team full-time – the Gliders. I’ve been their Head Coach the last 3 years, but unfortunately we missed out on qualifications for Rio. We were beaten by a very strong Chinese team who run a full-time program. They’re tough to beat at the moment! They should contend well at Rio, and have a side that could potentially win a medal. We only lost by 8 points, and missed qualification because our zone in the IWBF controlling body didn’t get an extra qualification spot. This meant that only China qualified for Rio, despite there being several teams in the world top 10 in this zone. It’s a bit disappointing when you think that the Paralympics are supposed to be the best of the best.
The qualification restrictions are in place to limit the number of teams competing at the Paralympics. These restrictions are created by the International Paralympic Committee depending on length of time the Paralympics are on, and how many courts and officials are available. The women’s competition is allowed 10 teams, and the men’s have 12. The host nation always gets a spot, then the top 5 positions in the previous world championships also get a spot. We ended up 6th. Each zone is then given one spot: Americas, Europe, Africa and Oceania. The Africans didn’t even compete in the World Championships, and yet with 3 strong teams competitive at world championship level in the Oceania region, only one gets through. It’s a bit disappointing and I think it will be changed to make the qualification process fairer. Unfortunately, it means the girls have lost a bit of motivation. They really struggled after that disappointment. www.coachinglife.com.au
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There’s no difference in the mental side of high performance between para and able-bodied. In some respects, I would say the Rollers are one of the most mentally tough teams you would ever want to meet. At that point I felt it was time to give someone else a chance at the job and resigned from Basketball Australia as their Head Coach. I’m very fortunate that history seems to have repeated itself and Craig is once again not available to accompany the Rollers to Rio, so I’m heading over after all in the assistant coach capacity. It’s funny how this keeps happening!
MENTALLY TOUGH TEAMS I’m quite a cerebral coach. I like to work things out and have people test me. I don’t like doing things just because it’s been done in the past. The girls tend to need to know the reason why we do thing, whereas the boys are more, “Okay Coach, how hard do you want me to hit?” Very black and white. The girls you have to explain, but I’m quite happy with that. In our games today, I think the girls still have a bit to go on their journey to come up to the elite mentality standard of men. This is only because we don’t have the same depth in their program as the men. When you have depth, you put pressure on each position and you get a different sense of hunger when you have more competition. That’s just Paralympic www.coachinglife.com.au
sport in our country, unfortunately, although it’s getting better as we get more people participating and the high performance athletes have to compete for their sports. Paralympic coaching is only different due to the classification constraints. In able-bodied basketball, you’ve got 12 players in your team and the interchange of players is quite easy. In a para team, you can only have a team worth up to 14 classification points on the floor at any one time. Those points are attributed depending on the level of disability: 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5 and so on to 4.5 [see Rollers Head Coach, Ben Ettridge’s article for more information]. Therefore it’s very important to understand how your players fit together in points and function. It also plays a role in selection as you obviously can’t load your whole team with 4-pointers because you couldn’t have them all on the court at once. If you go over 14 points, you can’t play. We actually go out looking for 1-pointers so we can put more big players out there. Australian wheelchair basketball is one of the most dominant
in the world because we’ve got very good 1-pointers and we back it up with exception 4-pointers. We tend to have an abundance of single leg amputees because of the nature of the injury, or those who have been disabled from birth. We get a lot of cancer patients that lose a leg, or from farm accidents. You also get a lot of paraplegics that tend to have a break at the hips. Getting players that have a high break but can still function really well is not easy. There’s no difference in the mental side of high performance between para and able-bodied. In some respects, I would say the Rollers are one of the most mentally tough teams you would ever want to meet. I’ve seen teams who have potentially more skill than us get beaten because of the mental toughness of our boys. In many respects, they’re the same as the able-bodied teams. They train the same number of hours, they do the same strength and conditioning, shooting, ball handling skills. The girls are still a work-in-progress by comparison, but again, that’s purely due to demand and will improve as their journey continues. COACHINGLIFE
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BE PREPARED TO REINVENT YOURSELF
PARA-CYCLING – PETER DAY, Performance Director (Para-cycling), Cycling Australia
AS A YOUNGSTER I DID A LOT OF TEAM SPORT, BUT I WASN’T VERY COMMITTED AS I WAS VERY MUCH AN INDIVIDUAL. IT WAS EASY FOR ME TO FOCUS ON MYSELF AS AN ATHLETE RATHER THAN ENJOYING DEPENDING ON A TEAM ENVIRONMENT.
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fell into cycling in Toowoomba at 14/15 and competed at state level and went to a few national championships until my early 20s. Balmoral was my home club where the system was to help out with the junior age groups as well as training yourself. I then married quite young and we had our first child – a little boy who was soon cycling as well. It became a transfer, as I began to get involved in coaching to ensure I had enough knowledge to help his development and others in the club. It was in the early 80’s when I did my first coaching course and began to learn about the different energy systems – aerobic and anaerobic capacity, ATP, and so on. In those days, many people didn’t study science in school before going into coaching. It gave me a thirst for knowledge to
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understand more, rather than just riding your bike.
UNDERSTAND THE INDIVIDUAL A lot of the older coaches were very prescriptive and were getting good results, but what also happened, was that the athletes with more potential weren’t satisfied with the knowledge they needed to progress. For me, working my day job in retail management, I brought those learned skills and communication style to my coaching so the athletes would understand the work they needed to do with and through others to achieve their outcomes. I looked at the coach as a manager rather than just training the athlete. With a manager mentality, I had to understand what their goals were and how their family situation and work life affected the training, which gave me a good formula for success. www.coachinglife.com.au
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Para cycling is unique in that is has both road and track cycling, and both men and women classes, all in one.
CH ONES TO WAT AIN
REAT BRIT TRACK : G CHINA onal with ti p e c x e are es . en ourselv second, th learly USA are c ROAD : the Y, , then ITAL dominant D are d HOLLAN n a Y N A M GER on. ep an eye ones to ke
Through listening and taking on other people’s ideas from outside cycling, particularly David Parkin, Wayne Bennett and Tim Sheen, I was able to transition my style of coaching to where other coaches I was working alongside also started adopting the same mannerisms. I took a mixed consultative/authoritarian approach dealing with the athletes. Even at my age now, you can’t sit back and think that you know it all. Leigh Matthews once said, “As you get older, you have to be prepared to reinvent yourself.” My early management background stood me in good stead to begin with, but as your athletes change, you have to be conscious of what their backgrounds are, especially in the para-cycling. It’s a constant awareness that people are individuals, and we have to manage, coach and direct with an understanding of the individual’s requirements.
follow my cycling coaching as a career. Thankfully a job opened up at the Queensland Academy of Sport that I felt I’d enjoy and would also benefit my son’s career.
STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES Immersed in coaching, I expanded my education where I could. I stayed with the QAS for many years before crossing over into their program management side for a short time, then returned to another coaching role. Soon after that, I was approached to take on the para-cycling role. During my time at the QAS, I’d always had strong relationships with the paracyclists, such as Chris Scott and Greg Ball. Chris was the highest winning para-cycling medallist in the world up until the 2012 London Games. When the opportunity came along to coach them, I jumped at it. One of the most important things for
any coach is to identify the strengths and weaknesses of any athlete you’re dealing with. You have to maintain their strengths and develop their weakness. With a para-athlete, their disability is their key weakness. Part of the identification is recognising that, and the fact that it is unlikely to get better. Therefore, you need to look at ways of improving their outcomes and working around the disability.
CLASSIFICATION AND SELECTION Para cycling is unique in that is has both road and track cycling, and both men and women classes, all in one. A coach doesn’t just focus on road, or just female track cyclists. It requires a broader skill set and knowledge base. In competition, you have single bikes for men and women, then tandems, trikes and hand cycles. Classification ranges from C1 – the most disabled, usually related to balance – up to C5 as the least with perhaps minor cerebral
I got to the point where I spent my summers coaching full-time while also working full-time, which took its toll. My professional work was suffering and lacked satisfaction by comparison, so I had to make a choice whether I would www.coachinglife.com.au
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Selection tends to be fairly straightforward. Our selection criteria are based on performance, and athletes have times that they need to make in national or international championships. They need to win their classification within Australia and meet the selection criteria time. Selectors are able to select outside of these criteria based on future potential for a talented athlete or for a classification where we don’t have any qualified athletes. But generally, selection criteria times are based on the top 5 in the world.
OUR FINAL PREPARATIONS FOR RIO I’m now entirely in the para world for coaching rather than able-bodied. My
Dmitry Yashkin / Shutterstock.com
palsy. A C4 could be a below knee amputation, or a combination arms/legs cerebral palsy. C3 is the midpoint, then C2 are mostly above knee amputees or a high level cerebral palsy or similar. Tandems have a sighted, able-bodied athlete in front and a vision-impaired athlete on the back, which requires a lot of coordination, harmony and a strong working relationship between the two. Hand cycles have classification H1-5, H1-4 all have some type of spinal injury and H5 lower limb issues which negate effective use of their legs to consider propelling a normal cycle. Hand cyclists are still a challenge for a mainstream cycling coach as the physiology is completely different and the technical set up is another matter entirely. role has also changed to include a lot of coach mentoring, overseeing the programs and regulating the program modules. In major competitions, I take over the role of Head Coach. Our para program is not centralised, so all our national team athletes are training with their home State Academy/Institute of Sport coaches, in cooperation with myself, all over the country.
quite a mammoth thing in regards to the amount of equipment we need to move. Nearly every athlete has 3 bikes, plus tandems and hand cycles. We look at the ‘what if’ scenarios and how we can adapt to every situation. The challenges will apply to every country, so the teams that prepare the best and deal with situations that arise will be the best placed on the line for competition.
The team heads over to Italy prior to Rio for a training camp. I’ve only been to one Paralympics prior to this – London 2012. This one will be a lot harder than London. For London, our staging camp was only a bus trip down the road from the venue, which was an absolute breeze. The logistics of getting into Rio is
Overall, I prefer not to focus on outcomes. Our entire team is very solid and all bar one has medalled at a World Championships, with several multi-World Champions. I’m confident we’ve the team capacity to do well, but everyone is also trying to do the same. Every athlete will be there to do their personal best.
TOP TIPS 1 2 Look, listen and learn!
Have a very strong selfevaluation process to really
evaluate what you did, how you did it, and how you managed the people who helped you achieve the outcome.
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3 4 5
No excuses, only reasons. Make decisions with justification, not preservation.
Truly appreciate and recognise the contribution of all involved. Results may be good or bad, but collectively we all signed on for the process we felt would best deliver, so we all share the outcomes. www.coachinglife.com.au
Diploma of Life Coaching
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Therapies Training ü Matrix Learn to clear the negative influences of people and events in your client’s past. Recognition ü International Our Diploma of Life Coaching course is recognised by the International Coach Federation. NLP Practitioner ü 7OurDayDiploma Course includes the 7 Day NLP Practitioner Certification.
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At TLCC we teach you your very own Coaching System. We call it the personal Coaching Program (PCP) and it gives you the first 12 coaching sessions (scripted) for you to have with your clients. This gives you a systemised product that you can take to market complete with marketing to support you. We have found over the years that this system is the best way to assist coaches to build their coaching hours and experience as they grow their Coaching Business.
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DOWN SYNDROME SWIMMING – JOHN BECKWORTH, Head Coach, Down Syndrome Swimming Australia
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I WASN’T A SWIMMER MYSELF, PREFERRING TENNIS, AFL AND SURFING. I ONLY GOT INVOLVED IN SWIM COACHING WHEN MY SON STARTED SWIMMING AT AGE 10.
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would take him to the pool, and the coach at the time was looking for some assistants. Because I had a teaching background, I was approached. Initially I helped out at the odd session, then as my son’s swimming developed, I became more interested until eventually I took over the full coach role years later for a period of 5 years. After a break, I returned to coaching and set up my own squad at a private pool in Geelong in 1993, which became quite successful. Most of the swimmers were from the Geelong Swimming Club, so the parents asked if I would come across to the club to coach. www.coachinglife.com.au
I’ve now been there ever since 1997. With my own squad, I was keen to develop swimmers to a national level and I had 3 swimmers get through to the Australian Age Championships. This allowed me to qualify as an ASCTA Silver Coach. I then had 4 qualify through to the Australian Open Championships, with 15 qualified for the Australian Age Championships. This led to Commonwealth Games and Olympic qualifying trials, achieving my initial main goal. I found I liked the balance of coaching and teaching in my life. Coaching has also given me opportunities such as being on an Australian team and travelling overseas. For example, in 2000, I had a boy join the club called Daniel Bell. He was classified as an S10 as he had cerebral palsy on one side of his body. He ended up becoming a Paralympian, and I went with him to the 2004 Athens Paralympics, where he won 2 silver individual medals and a relay gold medal. It started me off coaching multi-class swimmers and gave me the opportunity to work with
some top Australian coaches through the AIS. This was very important to my development as a coach. I also began working with Kate Allen, an Austrian triathlete who grew up in Geelong. She won the gold medal at the Sydney 2000 Olympics, but her swimming leg needed improvement to stay competitive. She asked me to help prepare her for Beijing, spending 3 months travelling with her to qualify, then was able to go the Olympics.
TRAINING A DOWN SYNDROME ATHLETE At the same time, I had a girl in training called Phoebe Mitchell with Down Syndrome. She started off in our junior program, and went off to compete in Taipei successfully. We decided that she needed to move up to the top club squad and has now been working with me since 2010. Phoebe is the reason I became involved with Down Syndrome Swimming Australia (DSSA), and was appointed as one of their Coach/Carers. This involves looking after their welfare as well as COACHINGLIFE
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being their coach. It was exciting being part of the Australian team that won the Down Syndrome Swimming World Championships in 2012. Phoebe is now one of several swimmers in my program who have either Down Syndrome or a physical disability. They are not trained differently – Phoebe is trained with my national squad and is expected to do everything that they do, except in speed of swimming. My coaching style adapts to the needs of the person I’m working with, whether they learn at different rates or in different styles. Phoebe tends to respond well to visual aids such as video to show her what she’s doing in the water, do lots of dry land demonstrations on the stroke, or by having the program written down. You can’t give too much information at once, with concrete instructions, or it won’t be retained as well. She’s
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an amazing, driven athlete who wants to be the best in the world and will do everything she can: nutrition, the amount of training, gym sessions, a job outside of training. One example of adapting training to the disability is the use of a tempo trainer. It sits under the swimmer’s cap and can be set to beep at different tempos to indicate stroke rate. This cues the swimmer to match the tempo with their stroke. For Down Syndrome swimmers like Phoebe, they have trouble moving and accelerating their arms in the stroke, so it helps them match the right stroke rates set by the coach. I got the idea from coaches using it for Paralympic swimmers. The reason Down Syndrome has its own world championships is because in Paralympic classification, they are designated an S14. However, while
One example of adapting training to the disability is the use of a tempo trainer. It sits under the swimmer’s cap and can be set to beep at different tempos to indicate stroke rate.
Down Syndrome is an intellectual disability, they are also not as physically strong as an intellectually disabled, able-bodied person, so the competition would not be fair. The Paralympic movement only currently allows for one disability, not two, as in their case. In www.coachinglife.com.au
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the long term this may be resolved, but until that point, our main focus will always be on the World Championships.
AUSTRALIA DOMINATES THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS The opportunity to apply for the Head Coach position with DSSA came up in 2014. Having been a school Assistant Principal, I’m used to being in a management position, so I found the role came fairly naturally working on logistics, helping the team manager, to ensure the team was well prepared to perform at its best. The World Championships that year was interesting as it was held in Morelia, Mexico at 2,000m altitude. We chose to go over 10 days early to adjust to the altitude difference, after much research and thought. The team of 24 adapted and swam well when it counted. Apart from the Mexicans themselves, we were the best prepared team as many others flew in late and their swimmers didn’t adapt. We won the World Championships and Phoebe was the Female Swimmer of the Meet. Australia has now won the DS World Championships 5 times in a row. This year, the World Championships were in Florence, Italy, as part of the Trisome Games with 7 different sports:
athletics, swimming, judo, table tennis, gymnastics, tennis and futsal. We took 22 swimmers and 9 staff, working on a ratio of about 1:3. I had 4 coaches on the team working with me, to which I allocate a group of swimmers and write the programs for. Prior to the Championships, we had a staging camp in Brisbane at Chandler, with a big presentation for team uniforms by the state Premier, and a speech by Olympic swimmer Taylor McKeown. The swimming leadership team also get up to make a speech, which is fantastic for their personal development. The Australian team again won the DS World Championships in Florence, Italy. Phoebe had a very successful meet collecting 6 individual gold medals and one silver. She was a member of two mixed relay teams that set World Records in winning gold. Another Down Syndrome member of the Geelong Swimming Club, Bradley Doolan qualified for 3 finals. He is coached by Sadat-Jon Hussain, one of our junior coaches. The next DS World Championships will be in Truro, Nova Scotia, Canada in 2018. The majority of our swimmers come from Queensland, 3 from Victoria, 1 from Tasmania, 1 from Western Australia, 1 from Canberra and a few
from Sydney. In the past, we’ve had some from the Northern Territory. Throughout the year, I communicate with their coaches to see how their progressing and offering help if needed. Like an Olympic team, their home coach prepares them for the championships and we just get them together in training camps, raising the bar, putting expectations into context for them, and getting them thinking of themselves as part of a team and as representatives of their country. My role is to set up the swimming structure for the coaches and support them where I can at the camp and at the championships. Selection for the team is quite straightforward. There are a set of qualifying times for swimmers to meet to be able to compete, and my policy is that if a swimmer has met one, they are selected. From there, it’s up to each swimmer how many events they compete in, up to 8. The 4 strongest swimmers are selected for the relay. There’s no funding from government or sporting bodies, so parents have to support the swimmers to compete. But it gives them a chance to travel all over the world, doing what they love.
John Beckworth is an ASCTA Gold Licence coach, the Head Coach at Geelong Swimming Club and current Head Coach at Down Syndrome Swimming Australia for the World Championship team. He has had swimmers compete at the top level, including Paralympic, Commonwealth and National levels, and has had extensive experience training both able-bodied and disabled athletes for swimming and triathlon.
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COACHING ADOLESCENTS WITH AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER
THE PREVALENCE OF ASD HAS INCREASED SIGNIFICANTLY IN RECENT YEARS(11). FOR EXAMPLE, IN AUSTRALIA, IT GREW 79% IN THE PERIOD 2009-2012(1). CRITICAL CHALLENGES OF ASD REFER TO EMOTIONAL AND COGNITIVE TASKS, COMMUNICATION, MOBILITY, SOCIALISATION AND THE RISKS OF INCREASED HEART DISEASE, OBESITY AND DIABETES THAT THE LARGELY SEDENTARY LIFESTYLE ASSOCIATED WITH ASD IMPLIES(1; 7; 16; 15).
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AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER AND SPORT Exercise ‘is a sensible approach to addressing a variety of problems associated with ASD’(15), particularly in the motor and social spheres(14). In this framework, participation in sport can be considered ‘essential, as it provides a sense of normalcy, allows the children to experience a fun activity with their peers, and develops important interpersonal skills’(6). Nevertheless, in order to provide favourable environments for participation, the program design needs to emphasise adaptations of physical activity (PA). Increasing PA in people with ASD can be difficult because of low motivation, poor motor functioning, difficulties in self-monitoring, socialising, and planning(12; 17). Individuals with ASD tend to have a great variety of abilities, with a variation of impaired and spared emotional, motor, social, creative, cognitive and sensory abilities. This implies that any given group of
people with ASD will have a variance in individual ability differences in relation to sport. The complexities of ASD make the role of coaches and sport managers particularly important to create supportive environments where participants can improve their skills, learn to relate to specific sports, enjoy peer companionship and feel accepted in a team sport setting. However, while specific/specialised training would help coaches to gain an appropriate understanding of ASD, coaches are often volunteers, lacking access to specialised support and/ or knowledge of effective practices to coach people with a developmental disorder(13). In an attempt to bridge the gap between ASD and sport participation, a team of researchers and sport experts from the University of South Australia, led by myself, has conducted some innovative work in partnerships with schools and www.coachinglife.com.au
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sport organisations in Adelaide and Whyalla (SA) in the last 2 years. In particular, the team looked at goodpractice coaching strategies to promote sociability and to engage with people with ASD through sport.
THE PILOT PROGRAM AND ITS RESULTS This pilot program, named ‘Supporting Success’, ran for 1 school term, every Friday afternoon for 1 hour, delivered by volunteer coaches with the assistance of school staff. Sports were selected in consultation with students and families, and comprised adaptations of cricket, soccer, netball, dance and lawn bowling. 10 coaches were recruited among university students with a significant background in sport, supplemented by 7 school staff who were familiar with all participants. Coaches were provided
with general community coaching training freely accessible from the Australian Sports Commission and with basic knowledge of working with youth with ASD provided by the school, but did not undergo specialised training about sport and autism, as this was not readily available. A group of 24 participants (18 males and 6 females) aged 13-19 was recruited among students of the Modbury Special School. Participants were initially organised in 3 groups based on the classes that they were normally attending during school hours. These reflected their cognitive abilities, but not their age, gender or motor skills. This approach was suggested by the school and agreed upon by coaches as they did not know participants well enough to group them by other criteria (e.g. motor skills).
Several coaching challenges were identified, referring chiefly to verbal communication, content/design of activities and coach-participant ratio. Several participants needed 1 on 1 support to grasp the basic concepts behind some of the sporting tasks. Coaches were especially challenged by explaining activities involving rules or more than one instruction, and giving directions to low-functioning participants. Breaking skills down into series of micro-steps helped to mitigate the issue and improved participants’ focus. Engaging all participants regardless of their level of functioning was an important part of the project (with reference to UDL and its flexible approach to coaching) and it also proved challenging. This implied the need for
Coaches were especially challenged by explaining activities involving rules or more than one instruction, and giving directions to low-functioning participants. www.coachinglife.com.au
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micro-adaptations within each activity to maintain the interest of the most motor skilled participants whilst ensuring accessibility for the less skilled ones. For example, this included increasing/ reducing the size of equipment (e.g. balls) or the distance of a kick/pass within the same exercise according to each participant’s abilities, or rolling a ball on the ground instead of throwing it in the air. It also included the use of cue words and an effort to retain a consistent and predictable structure/ routine and to design activities organised in stations. Activities in enclosed spaces (i.e. the gym) generally proved more complex for coaches as they provided more proximity with other groups of participants and so more opportunities for distraction. Initial consultation with school staff suggested that approximate coachparticipant ratios of 1:3 or 1:4 would be satisfactory. However, when the program commenced, coaches identified that more resources were needed to ensure all participants received attention at all times and suggested that a desirable
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coach-participant ratio would be as high as 1:2. Coaches and school staff identified several strategies as effective to engage participants on the basis of their observation of the willingness/ enthusiasm showed by participants in response. In particular, these referred to positive reinforcement/encouragement and relationship-building strategies. For example, coaches deliberately celebrated all the successes – even minor achievements – of participants. This included both verbal and physical explicit displays of approval (e.g. high fives, fist bumps, victory dances) and proved very popular with participants showing appreciation and initiating celebrations themselves in several instances. Coaches also provided much encouragement (both verbal and bodylanguage) for participants before, during and after activities. Importantly, by the end of the 6-week pilot, participants started to encourage their peers verbally very noticeably. Another example referred to the inclusion of ‘walking warm-ups’ at
the beginning of every session, which proved effective in giving participants an opportunity to talk amongst one another and to chat informally with coaches. During these times, participants typically asked numerous questions about the forthcoming sessions, for example about the nature of planned activities and their location. An important feature of the project was an excursion to the Adelaide Oval in the last week of the program, including a visit and a cricket clinic delivered by South Australian Cricket Association coaches in conjunction with the regular volunteer coaches. Participants showed much engagement and enthusiasm during the excursion, despite finding themselves at an unfamiliar location and outside their typical routine. Several participants kept mentioning the excursion and writing about it in their recount journals for several days after its occurrence. This was uncharacteristic as they had not displayed an interest in sport previously, but, building on this, the school decided to incorporate cricket as a topic of formal conversation classes, where students practice social www.coachinglife.com.au
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and communication skills with teachers and peers. School staff suggested that participating in the program helped students to establish a good relationship with their volunteer coaches and that experiencing some aspects of the game of cricket in the weeks preceding the excursion helped participants feel comfortable and engage with the day’s activity. The evaluation of the program indicated that the great majority of participants enjoyed themselves, enjoyed playing with coaches and peers, and would like to keep playing sport beyond the program.
HOW COACHES CAN PUT THIS INTO PRACTICE This project showed that it is possible to use sport to work with adolescents with ASD and suggest that this may facilitate the development of a positive environment to engage participants in activities targeting socialisation and promoting PA. It also emphasised that the role of coaches is paramount to engage participants on a personal and individual level. Coaches need to understand the discrete needs and abilities of all participants in order to sensibly and fluidly adapt activities ‘on the go’ to maximise motivation. Activities should be kept as simple as possible, suitable adaptations should be planned for, session plans should be clear, coaches should have prior knowledge of the participants’ abilities, and sessions should be planned to be consistent and predictable, yet flexible enough to allow for late modifications. A high coach-participant ratio is critical to ensure individualised support throughout activities. However, to maximise socialisation outcomes, it is critical that the experience of participants is carefully monitored by coaches to ensure a balance between individualised support and the provision www.coachinglife.com.au
of an environment that may foster interaction and socialisation among participants. Pairs or trios – as opposed to groups of six to eight – seem a viable solution, providing opportunities for individualised support as well as more interaction with coaches and a reasonable degree of interaction with peers. Group selection is another critical point. Levels of motor and social functioning may differ greatly within a cohort of participants and coaches should be aware that cognitive functioning may not reflect motor abilities and be prepared to continuously monitor the experience of participants and re-arrange predetermined groups if necessary. Future adaptations of the program will need to consider a more careful approach to group selection, for example after a series of ‘come and try’ sessions aimed at grouping participants with peers displaying similar sport-related and social abilities. Coaching knowledge and training is crucial, particularly about key paradigms
Dr Edoardo G.F. Rosso is a social geographer with an interest in sociological and psychological aspects of sport and physical activity, in particular for vulnerable people. This encompasses sport and development, community development, social capital and sport coaching. At the time of writing, he held a position as a Research Fellow: Sport and Development in the University of South Australia’s Division of Health Sciences
of ASD and PA. However, given the importance of high coach-participant ratios, the general lack of specialised ASD training available for sport coaches, the obstacle that securing highly-trained coaches generally requires high fees and the endemic fund drought that community sport programs face (at least in Australia), it is unrealistic to expect community programs to be staffed by a majority of highly specialised coaches. To mitigate this issue, it is beneficial that program design is informed by a true community development approach(18) and includes at least one specialised organisation, which undertakes the task to prepare volunteer coaches to work with adolescents with ASD and provides specialised on-site support. It is important that future adaptations of this project recognise the need for a specific coach education program that goes beyond currently-available generic, simplified approaches to sport and mental disability, that is informed by principles of UDL, and is designed/ delivered in collaboration between sport and ASD experts.
(Adelaide). Edoardo is also a qualified football coach and holds the position of Women’s Head Coach at Adelaide City Football Club. The findings of this project have been presented at 4 international conferences in 2015 and 2016, and the results of a pilot program conducted at the Adelaidebased Modbury Special School have recently been published in the prestigious Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders(10).
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WE ARE YOUR EVERYDAY SUPERHUMANS
WHO WOULD THINK THAT A CROONER IN A WHEELCHAIR, SINGING IN A PARK, WOULD LEAD TO ONE OF THE MOST INSPIRATIONAL VIDEOS OF THE YEAR?
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hen Tony Dee was approached to audition for the Channel 4 ‘We’re The Superhumans’ video, he didn’t even have a backing track. So with his wife, he went to the local park and, with the soundtrack playing in his ear, recorded his audition on a small camera. 6 weeks later, he was on a flight to the UK to record “Yes I can”, the Sammy Davis Jnr song. The video features over 140 people with disabilities in 65 different scenes and took over 3 weeks to film. Tony, being a true professional, recorded the song
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on the first ½ day and spent the next 3 weeks, pretending to sing to his own voice. Yes, he has come a long way from singing at his church in Brisbane, but he’ll tell you that those 12 hour days were fun, boring and manic all in one. For insider tips, the helmet-wearing stuntman is actually the same guy in the supermarket with a Mohawk – Rick Rodgers, a wheelchair stuntman. The final scene features Aaron “Wheelz” Fotheringham who was the first guy to do a back flip in a wheelchair in 2006 and a double back flip in 2010. www.coachinglife.com.au
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Tony says, “It was inspiring to see the high jumper and car driver do their thing, but in reality, all the performers were just ordinary people.” The video has now had over 4 million views on YouTube and over 28 million views on the Channel 4 website. If by some miracle you haven’t seen it yet, then you are in for a treat. One of the most common reactions I have heard
from people watching the video is “I’m just not trying hard enough.” Tony has returned to Australia now and will be performing at the 2016 Disability Awards Night in Canberra in December this year. Our hat is off to you, Tony, and your amazing band.
“It was inspiring to see the high jumper and car driver do their thing, but in reality, all the performers were just ordinary people.” www.coachinglife.com.au
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FULL SPEED AHEAD FOR FOOTBALL’S PARAROOS PARA FOOTBALL – KAI LAMMERT, Head Coach, Men’s Paralympic National Team (Pararoos), Football Federation Australia
I’VE PLAYED FOOTBALL ALL MY LIFE. I GREW UP IN GERMANY AND WAS GIVEN A FOOTBALL ALMOST BEFORE I COULD WALK. IT WAS AN ALLCONSUMING PASSION AND THE BEST CHILDHOOD I COULD IMAGINE.
F
rom my local club, VFR Voxtrup, I made it into the Youth Bundesliga just before I turned 18. I played through their reserve grade and then signed a professional deal to play for 2 years with VFL Osnabruck. After a year, I broke my leg, so I decided to go to Australia with my mate Bjoern Richter for 4 months, see some of the world, before returning to Germany to play. It laid the foundation for me to return in 2000, intending to stay for a year. 16 years later, I’m now an Australian! My first year of coaching was with my original local club, coaching the Under 7s, while I was signed with the professional club in Germany. I started coaching because I could see the same love for the game that I had in everyone I coached. That got me into
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coaching, shortly after I completed my UEFA B licence in Germany, and then in Australia I was able to do further coaching qualifications and opened up a football school. The school did very well and I was offered the state coach role with Football NSW. We ended up winning the National Championships, and afterwards I was offered a job with Knox Grammar School coaching football fulltime, where I still am today. I received my Australian citizenship in 2014 and took on the Head Coach job for the Australia Paralympic team for football – the Pararoos – in 2015 after being the Assistant Coach for the previous 8 years.
THE PARAROOS: AN ELITE TEAM IN EVERY WAY I love what I’m doing. I really enjoy my www.coachinglife.com.au
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O N E S TO W ATCH B
ecause RUSSIA disquali is fied, BR A Z IL on home so il could g e t the better o f UKRAI NE this yea r.
coaching, even after 16 years. With the Paralympic national team, there’s no difference in how they train or how I coach in comparison to the NSW state team. They have to be just as professional – and they are. When I was first asked to be the Assistant Coach, I didn’t really know what to expect. But when I stepped into the room, all I saw was a group of committed footballers who wanted to learn to play the game well. I’ve never seen their disability, which is
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something they taught me. They are the best players in Australia. Like any state or professional team, we use video analysis, have professional staff, make use of sport science, and stick to the FFA’s philosophy of play. The boys have a great belief in what we do and grow in confidence from tournament to tournament. Because the Paralympic teams play 7-a-side, not 11, you have to pay attention to a lot of details on the tactical side. In classification, a C5 or
C6 classification is the most severe in disability with both sides of the person affected, legs and arms. A C7 might be a one-sided disability, and an C8 might be mild cerebral palsy or another mild disability, for example. You are only allowed to have one C8 on the pitch at any one, and you must have one C6 on the pitch. If you don’t have one, then you must play a man down. For some, like the USA, their C6 is also their best player, which is very unusual. Players are mostly affected by cerebral palsy,
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PARALYMPIC EDITION acquired brain injury or symptoms resulting from a stroke – any brainrelated injuries. Even Alzheimer’s would potentially be eligible to play. Before and after the tournament, classifiers check over the players and can move a player up or down a classification grade. It is even possible for players to be classified out, i.e. not eligible to play. While it can be heartbreaking for the player, it can also be good, because if you were a C6 or C7 who has done so much work that you’re now an E (ineligible), it means you’ve improved your mobility to the extent where you are close to being able-bodied. I brought in some new, younger players to the squad more recently and the Pararoos have now qualified for the World Championships next year (2017) in Argentina, although we just missed out on qualifying for the Paralympics in Rio. The World Championships are held every 4 years, as is the Paralympics, the Asian Cup and the World Cup. We are currently ranked No.2 in Asia, No.14 in the world, and we finished 12th at the last World Cup. We will still be looking to recruit another few young players, but the core group are getting stronger and I expect that 70-80% will be part of the World Championship team for Argentina.
FIGHTING ON FOR THE FUTURE Compared to other nations, we are at a bit of a disadvantage being so far
away from others. For instance, Ukraine and Russia have a professional league and are able to play essentially fulltime football. Even the other European nations play regular tournaments, and a training camp for them costs perhaps $1,000 but would cost $20,000 for us. Football Federation Australia has been great in their support of the team, and hopefully together we can find sponsors that would like to commit long term to a full-time program. We also lose players to other sports. Recently, we’ve lost one to Paralympic athletics. In other countries, this doesn’t tend to happen as they have a very strong football culture. Finding players can also be difficult as in Australia disabilities are well-integrated into schools and systems, whereas in a country like Russia they have one school
5 TOP TIPS 1
Never stop learning. Get out of your comfort zone, because that’s where learning happens.
2
Fun and discipline (make sure you and your team enjoy the game, but at the same time instil respect and
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to go to in each area from which they can easily identify potential players. It’s something to be applauded in Australia, but it does make my job harder! Our players are from every walk of life, all with jobs or are studying. While they all have some type of brain-related disability, they are not intellectually disabled nor do they require carers. For example, one is an Assistant Principal at a school. Their self-discipline is fantastic and many train before and after work. They are elite athletes, and want to be treated as such. In future, I would like to see an Australian women’s football version of the Pararoos as well. I’m very passionate about pushing this, which would make Australia the first in the world.
discipline as your core nonnegotiable team values).
3 4
Have a clear philosophy and style of play.
Attention to detail is key for coaching in a high performance environment.
5
Instil self-belief, confidence and trust in to the group and you’re halfway there!
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FUN PARALYMPIC FACTS
The idea for the Paralympic Games came from German neurologist, Sir Ludwig Guttmann, who organised a sports event for soldiers injured in World War II at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Buckinghamshire in 1948. In 1949 he said, ‘Maybe one day there would be Olympics for the disabled’.
3 5 7
Goalball is for athletes who are blind or visually impaired. The object is to roll the ball into the opponent’s goal while the opposing team tries to block the ball with their bodies. Bells located inside the ball help players locate the ball’s whereabouts. Because of the unique nature of the game, total silence is required inside the venue when play is in progress.
Visually impaired swimmers wear blackened goggles to ensure fair competition. They each have someone acting as a ‘tapper’, who uses a pole to tap the swimmer when they approach the wall, indicating when they should turn or end the race.
The first athlete with a disability to compete in the able-bodied Games was German American gymnast George Eyser. He competed in 1904 with one artificial leg and earned 6 medals in one day: 3 gold, 2 silver and a bronze.
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2 4 6 8
The Paralympic Games are the world’s second largest sports event after the Olympic Games. In 1952, 2 nations and 130 athletes took part. In 1960, 400 athletes and 23 nations participated. In London in 2012, 4200 athletes from 160 countries attended.
There is just one difference between able-bodied and wheelchair tennis – two bounces are allowed in wheelchair tennis. But, often the best players don’t even need the two bounces.
The Paralympic Games has been subjected to numerous cheating scandals since it was launched. Competitors have been found guilty of steroid use, autonomic dysreflexia and even being able-bodied.
Paralympian Trischa Zorn is the most decorated competitor in the history of the Games. From 1980 to 2004 she won a total of 55 medals, including 41 gold, in blind swimming events. COACHINGLIFE
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ARTICLE REFERENCES COACHING ADOLESCENTS WITH AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER (PP.64-67) By Dr Edoardo G. F. Rosso, University of South Australia 1. Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2014). Autism in Australia, 2012. Cat. No. 4428.0. http://www.abs. gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/4428.0 2. Baum, F., MacDougall, C., & Smith, D. (2006). PAR. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 60(10), 854-857. 3. Boucher, J. (2009). The Autistic Spectrum: Characteristics, Causes and Practical Issues. Thousand Oaks: Sage. 4. Kemmis, S., McTaggart, R., & Nixon, R. (2014). The action research planner – Doing critical PAR. Singapore: Springer. 5. LaLonde, K.B., MacNeill, B.R., Wolfe Eversole, L., Ragotzy, S.P., & Poling. A. (2014). Increasing PA in young adults with autism spectrum disorders. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 8(12), 16791684. 6. Ohrberg, N.J. (2013). Autism Spectrum Disorder and youth sports: The role of the sports manager and coach. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, 84(9), 52-56. 7. Pan, C.-Y. & Fry, G.C. (2006). PA patterns in youth with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 36(5), 597-606. 8. Minkler, M. (2000). Using PAR to build healthy communities. Public Health Reports 15(2-3): 191–197. 9. Reid, G. (2003). Defining adapted PA. In R.D. Steadward, G.D. Wheeler, & E.J. Watkinson (Eds.), Adapted PA (pp. 11-25). Edmonton: University of Alberta Press. 10. Rosso, E. (2016). Brief Report: Coaching adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder in a schoolbased multi-sport program. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 46(7), 2526-2531. 11. Roth, L. (2013). Autism Spectrum Disorder – Briefing Paper No 5/2013. NSW Parliamentary Research Service. http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/publications.nsf/0/ B2142391F94516FECA257B78001FB961/$File/Autism%20Spectrum%20Disorder.briefing%20 paper.pdf 12. Sayers Menear, K. & Smith, S.C. (2013). Teaching physical education to students with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Strategies: A Journal for Physical and Sport Educators, 24(3), 21-24. 13. Sherlock-Shangraw, R. (2013). Creating inclusive youth sport environments with the universal design for learning. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, 84(2), 40-46. 14. Sorensen, C. & Zarrett, N. (2014). Benefits of PA for adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders: A comprehensive review. Review Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 1, 344-353. 15. Sowa, M. & Meulenbroek, R. (2012). Effects of physical exercise on Autism Spectrum Disorders: A meta-analysis. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 6(1), 46-57. 16. Smith, V. & Patterson, S.Y. (2012). Getting into the game: Sport programs for kids with autism. London and Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. 17. Todd, T. & Reid, G. (2006). Increasing PA in individuals with autism. Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, 21(3), 167-176. 18. Vail, S. E. (2007). Community development and sport participation. Journal of Sport Management, 21, 571–596. 19. Van Mullem, P. & Brunner, D. 2013. Developing a successful coaching philosophy: A step-by-step approach. Strategies: A Journal for Physical and Sport Educators, 26(3), 29-34.
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THE LAST WORD… Back yourself. You’re going to make mistakes, but if you don’t, how do you improve?
Keep things simple and adopt a common sense approach to ensure the athletes are in the best performance environment.
Spend time with a mentor coach learning your craft and being challenged.
Love what you do, otherwise it will feel like a sacrifice. Geoff Woolley
Ben Ettridge
Corey Bacon
Jan Cameron
Learn as much as you can, including from other coaches and sports.
Coaching comes down to having something of value to offer someone else.
Roger Massie Depth in a team puts pressure on each position, which creates a sense of hunger.
Gordon Marcks
Devote yourself to your goals but also have life balance, ensuring that the people around you are involved in the journey.
If you always copy others, you’ll always be behind them.
Stephen Jennison
Tom Kyle Respect and discipline should be your core non-negotiables.
Brad Dubberley
Kai Lammert Always strive to be better and constantly upskill yourself.
Social attitudes can be more difficult to overcome than physical ones.
Jan Cameron
Good attitudes at a community club level can lead to great things.
Hussain Hanif
Hussain Hanif Instil self-belief, confidence and trust in your athlete, and you’ll be halfway there!
No excuses, only reasons.
Kai Lammert Really engage with other coaches and allow yourself to learn from them.
Truly appreciate and recognise the contribution of all involved.
Peter Day
Peter Day
Julia Battams
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