I’m curious as to the reasons why some elite athletes have difficulty attaining their high ranking subsequent to changing coaches. Several athletes come to mind. Particularly those competing for an Oly berth in the next 2 weeks.
I understand why most changes may have been made. In addition, I realize that adaptations, with regard to training philosophy, may have a good deal to do with it. However, in some cases, it may take several seasons for an elite athlete to re-acquire their prior elite ranking status.
Are they strip down and/or fix oriented training systems that the new coach may do? Emotional, psychological maturation?
This is quite interesting also when taking into consideration other sports’ experiences as it could actually give some insights to the nature of the sport itself.
In Swimming -where I do have more familiarity and frequentation- many World Class all timers apparently come from long term Athlete - Coach relationships. I remember an Australian Swimming conference providing examples of such long term development citing WR holders Kieren Perkins, Grant Hackett,Ian Thorpe, and clearly putting the long term Athlete-Coach partnership as a cornerstone for World Class achievements.
This is in evident contrast with what’s happening to Italian Swimming now,where we assist to continue carousels of Athletes changing Coaches season after season and in season (olympic…!) too, despite clear evidence of steady results produced in long term contexts. Money availability and some issues of poor mananagement do contribute to the phenomenon overall.
I think an interesting issue seldomly discussed could be the analysis of short term as opposed to medium -long term training effects (and therefore Athletes’ results) which might as well be evidentiated in such situations,possibly offering some insights on the nature and peculiarities of single sports.