Issue 803 - April 2010 - Race Walk UK

(Leeds University); Lauren Whelan (LeedsCity College); Nathan Duncan(Cleethorpes); Gabrielle Terry (Kingstonupon Hull); Jamie Higgins (Leeds City AC);and on a 12 month exchange RachaelTeddy (AUS). We have hosted severalathletes for training camps and will welcomemembers of the Australian World Cup Teamfor a five week camp immediately followingthe World Cup. We continue to recruit for2010 entry and expect to add more athletesin September subject to successfulexamination results!We are delighted to have won both men'sand women's 2010 National 20 kmChampions in April with Tom Bosworth andJohanna Jackson. Our strategies andobjectives relate to developing talenttowards championship level competition.Johanna Jackson has become the firstBritish athlete to place on the podium in anIAAF Challenge placing 3rd in Sesto SanGiovanni on May 1st. Brendan Boyce (IRL)has achieved an IAAF qualifying time for the2011 World Athletics Championships 50 kmfollowing his debut recently in Dudince,Slovakia in March. 19 year old Alex Wrightrecorded 1 h 30 min for his debut 20 km inSesto San Giovanni and Tom Bosworth wonhis first ever national title on his debut 20km: both athletes straight from the juniorranks in 2009. In the successes of Johanna,Brendan, Alex and Tom we can see thetalent development process taking shape.We have also hosted race walk specificelements of the England Athletics NationalCoach Development Programme andcontinue this work with EA National CoachMentor Martin Rush. Moreover we lookforward to sharing our work and welcomingdelegates from around the World and theUK at the forthcoming 2010 EuropeanAthletics Coaching Summit Series when wehost the 1st European Race WalkingConference between 5th and 7th ofNovember.As Director of Race Walking I head up theprogramme but creating a performanceenvironment relies on a team ofprofessionals and the progression of theathletes has been strongly supported bybiomechanist Brian Hanley;physiotherapists from the CarnegieSports Physiotherapy Clinic, led byAlison Rose; nutritionist Louise Sutton;physiologists and psychologists fromCarnegie Sports Performance; andsupport coaching from Andy Henderson(strength & conditioning and endurancetraining) and Ian Richards. Thesecolleagues have got to know the athletesand as they develop their understandingof the race walking events their valuegrows! This set up provides the Carnegieathletes with quality coaching for alltraining sessions structured using sportscience and sport medicine support.Working so closely with the athletesallows constant monitoring of theirhealth/fitness/weakness status.Talent development goes beyond puttingin the kilometres in training as we seek todevelop all aspects of the performanceprocess. One of the principle areas ofwork has been conditioning in order toavoid injury and be ready to tolerateincreasing training workloads. This hasbeen an issue for some of the athletesand leads me to challenge our race walkcoaching knowledge and skills. Thephysiotherapy support required by theathletes at the Centre can be dividedequally between those who specialisedlate and those who specialised early: thelate specialisation group have utilised sixtimes less physiotherapy than the earlyspecialisation group in the periodSeptember 2009 to March 2010! Theathletes who specialised in race walkinglate (i.e. mid-teenage years) have a baseof athletic skills and competencies from arange of track & field events and othersports that provides a conditioning baseto tolerate training loads. The earlyspecialisation group have done little elseother than race walk since their earlyteenage years or younger... The supportwe are able to provide is effectivelyreducing the injury rate but we areengaging in remedial work that as agroup of professionals we feel is part of