Sport
Jamaican coach makes splash for UK Athletics
BY KAYON RAYNOR Senior staff reporter raynork@jamaicaobserver.com
Monday, November 09, 2009
IT is not unusual for athletes of Jamaican heritage to excel in track and field outside of the national colours. They include names such as Olympic and World Championship medallists Donovan Bailey (Canada), Linford Christie (Great Britain) and Sanya Richards (United States).
However, a Jamaican coach excelling in the interest of another country is a novelty. Lloyd Cowan, who works with UK Athletics, is such a coach.
Born in London to Jamaican parents, Nenen and Hopeton who lived in St Catherine and attended Maverley All-Age School, is now enjoying much success as one of the UK’s top coaches.
The man who is credited with discovering Britain’s Olympic, World and Commonwealth Games Champion Christine Ohuruogo, was recently in Jamaica and spoke with The Observer about his journey in athletics.
“I did not stop racing until age 37 and I got involved with coaching by a little bit of default,” said Cowan, who competed in the 110 hurdles at the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Victoria, Canada. He had personal best times of 13.75 seconds in the sprint hurdle event and 50.79 in the 400m hurdles.
“A young kid approached me and asked if I could coach him and I was thinking, ‘no, I don’t do those things’. But in 1999, I met a guy called Maurice Freckleton, who was my first hurdler, and we went to the World Indoors in 2002 or 2003 and everything started from there,” he recalled.
“I recruited a lot back in the day and gave a lot of athletes away to other coaches because I wasn’t really into the coaching thing because I worked to raise a family,” he added.
But Cowan, who has Level 4 qualification with UK Athletics, said he has seriously taken on coaching over the past five years.
“Until I worked for the Federation (UK Athletics), I was doing it on a part-time basis. I reckon since the 2004 Olympics in Athens, I really got into it - doing a lot of studying and looking at how I could improve myself as a coach,” he said.
During that time Cowan has been reaping much success at the international level with athletes such as Olympic 400m champion Christine Ohuruogu, Chris Turner and Simeon Williamson, who is currently in Jamaica training with the Racers Track Club, having worked out with the MVP Track Club last season.
“For the last three years I’ve been working with UK Athletics as a performance coach and then I reapplied for a new job this year, which is Olympic coach, that will take me to 2012,” Cowan disclosed.
“Right now my position is to deal with the athletes based in London that come to me, who have Olympic potential.”