UK Athletics head coach demands more from his athletes
After leaving UK Athletics in 2004 for the technical director position of the Netherlands athletics team, Charles Van Commenee returned to UK Athletics in 2008 as the national head coach. Now as he prepares the UK team for the 2012 Olympic Games, Van Commenee has publicly challenged both men’s and women’s relay teams to improve after a dismal showing at the 2010 European Championships in Barcelona.
"There is a lot of work to be done," said Van Commenee to BBC. "We have too many athletes at home with injuries. That needs to be addressed. We don't have enough athletes across the events, especially the field events, especially the women."
Overall Great Britain did well at the European Championships, taking home 19 medals, 6 of them gold. Expectations were that Britain would win between 10 and 15 medals, but still they fell short from the total they could have had.The 4x400m men’s relay team was expected to win gold at the Championships, but had to settle for silver after suffering a surprise defeat by the Russians. Both the men’s and women’s 4x100m failed to reach the finals. Mark Lewis-Francis, the men’s anchor, failed to take the baton cleanly from Marlon Devonish causing a fifth place finish with a time of 39.49 seconds. Even with the failures by the men, Van Commenee is even more concerned with the women.
"The women were a disgrace and the men were not much better," Van Commenee also stated.
Although the women’s 4x100m team was not expected to win a medal, they were expected to finish better than 6th with a time of 44.09 seconds. Van Commenee is also concerned with Christine Ohuruogu and Nicola Sanders, both of whom are coming off injuries and need to regain full fitness. Britain’s field athletes also offered no women in the finals of the long jump, shot put, high jump, or the hammer and discus throws.
Van Commenee is known as a tough coach, but he has also earned the respect of his athletes over the years. In 2003 he helped Kelly Sotherton, ranked 57th in the world at the time, win the bronze medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics. After her finish he called her “a wimp” for not winning silver.
During his recent time in the Netherlands, Van Commenee helped them achieve their second-highest Olympic medal count.
His concerns are not without merit. Britain has been disappointed in their sprinters before. At the 1996 Atlanta Games and the 2000 Sydney Games, British sprinters dropped batons. They suffered another drop at the World Championships in Edmonton in 2001, and there was a disqualification at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
It was a weak showing at the Beijing Games that prompted UK Athletics to appoint Van Commenee as head coach in 2008. He has already made an impact, shown by Britain’s success at the World and European Championships.
His immediate impact may be more obvious while looking at the World Junior Championships results last month in Moncton, Canada. Britain finished with nine medals, their best total at the World Juniors. Sprinting star Jodie Williams won gold in the 100m and silver in the 200m, but Sophie Hitchon may better represent the impact Van Commenee has made on British Athletes after winning the hammer title.
His focus is on coaching, not just general performance management. He works directly with his athletes and coaches, looking to help them move from good to outstanding. Between now and the 2012 Games his challenge will be to help his younger athletes, like Williams and Hitchon, improve to a level in which they can compete at an Olympic level. With two years to go there is already a feeling in Europe that the Brits are back and ready to compete for gold at the 2012 London Olympic Games.
Tags: