As I understand it, Lynch has his own personal coach of many years (Larry Spencer) and lives about an hour drive north of Sydney. Spencer has an “elite” squad plus a nursery (coached by a friend). Spencer brought some of his 200m sprinters to the try-outs for a new 400m development project initiated by the NSW state government’s elite sports arm, the NSW Institute of Sport which is based at Sydney Olympic Park, Homebush (home of the 2000 Olympics).
The NSWIS project is called the 400m Fast Track program. There is a panel of formerly/currently successful sprints/hurdles/400m coaches who are the advisory committee and these four senior coaches mentor the personal coaches and co-design training programs (with the specific personal coach) for the athletes accepted into the project.
Some of the senior coaches have their own athletes who occasionally work at the same venue as the project athletes and therefore sometimes they do the same session or similar.
This project has had no public profile as yet. Not sure why. But other than schoolkids who seem to compete non-stop :), Matt Lynch appears to be the first of the older athletes at the top end of the project who has set foot on the competition track. Presumably that’s because he has remained injury-free and therefore able to stick to some sort of proposed time-line for the season in Oz.
My understanding is that NSWIS will conduct an annual try-out (consisting of numerous physiological tests and other evaluations) in late January to find the next induction of athletes.
The first try-outs were early this year (March?). More than 80 athletes aged 15-21 attended and these were invited to train a couple of days per week on the NSWIS program. Then after about two months, there were some more tests and the group was culled to about 40 or so. Then after another training block of at least six weeks, there was another cull (mosty of athletes who showed no commitment to attending).
Then the remaining group of about 30 were split into three tiers (groups) based mostly on age because it was apparently problematic for 15-year-olds to train with 20-year-olds.
I think the concept is interesting. The implementation for something like this would always dpend upon the relationship and personalities, the professional respect and the goodwill generally between the advisory panel and the respective personal coaches.
So I guess there would be some talented athletes who may be interested in stepping up to 400m, but whose coaches may have issues preventing them committing to a companion coaching scenario.
I am just speculating on that, but human nature being what it is I could see that as a bridge too far for some of the egomaniacs in the sphere of “coaching”.
In any case I think it is an interesting initiative and a promising adventure into Talent ID & Development (if the Matt Lynch debut is anything to go by).
kk.