Postcard from Melbourne

[system]

Wooo hooooooo!

[Nikoluski]

Well done!!

[kitkat1]

Final Men’s 100m
Wind+0.9 Rk Bib Country - Name Birth Date Lane Reaction Time Results
1 1560 JAM - POWELL Asafa 23/11/1982 3 0.139 10.03
2 1777 NGR - FASUBA Soji 09/07/1984 6 0.152 10.11
3 2124 TRI - BURNS Marc 07/01/1983 4 0.201 10.17
4 1774 NGR - EMEDOLU Uchenna 17/09/1976 5 0.164 10.22
5 1449 GHA - ZAKARI Aziz 02/09/1976 2 0.177 10.22
6 1048 AUS - JOHNSON Patrick 26/09/1972 8 0.173 10.26
7 1221 CAN - HENRY Anson 09/03/1979 1 0.149 10.28
8 1329 ENG - DEVONISH Marlon 01/06/1976 7 0.137 10.30

[DMA]

Excuse me for asking.

But who are their athletes?

Other than than the Aussie guys, I am looking at two Canadaian hammer throwers. James Steacy (great bloke) had the fortune of eating a meat pie with him at Vic Champs and Jennifer Joyce (a small girl amongst giants). So anymore athletes for me to cheer on would be great.

I still have a voice, but only just.

Great Postcards guys

[pindaman]

great to hear,things ate going good in Melbourne.

[AUT_71]

@DMA

Excuse me for asking.

But who are their athletes?

Well, maybe the don’t want t to be outed directly - but for PJ’s athlete read the following post of this thread ;-):

http://www.charliefrancis.com/community/showpost.php?p=117827&postcount=22

[kitkat1]

@pierrejean

Dear all,

I was also INSTRUCTED to send you a postcard from Melbourne, and very happy to do so.
I have some time for myself this morning and i dedicate it to you.

I had the chance to meet Sprint-Coach few days after my arrival on Thursday. We both are pretty busy now but hope to have time to chat with such a great person.

I left Moscow on Monday and arrived in Melbourne on Thursday, after several transits to save money, so i’m still a little bit upside down.
Like sprint coach, my first concern was to make my athlete on the track soon: on Thursday he did 4 x 30m blocks easely + 1 x 150m in 17.5. On Friday, he did a tempo 4 x 200m split runs on the grass. He felt great after this. He progressively overcame jet lag, and massage and motivational speaches did the rest.
My second concern was to find a place to sleep as i realised when i came off the plane that i wasnt in the accreditation system. Big shock and surprise for the athlete. This means access to NOWHERE. So since my arrival i have access to the village as a guest from 9am to 9pm. No access to dining, so my athlete pick me some food at the dining. Fortunately, it is easy to find free bananas, apples and cakes in some waiting points of the village. The first day i manage to cheat and sleep on the floor in my athletes room (the bed is for him i dont massage him for nothing!). The second day i met a Canadian coach with who i share now a youth hotel room. My main job is to get the athlete out of this stress. I managed by god’s grace, after a long fight, to get a personal coach pass to the warm up area the night before the competition morning heats (Friday at 11.30 pm). This was the only thing i asked so i was the happiest man in the World. My athlete has not much reserve left so we kept the warm-up very short, the minimum to avoid injury. He managed yesterday to qualify for semi finals in spending the less effort possible during the qualifying rounds. I didnt saw his races as i have no access to competition stadium, and the TVs in the warm up focus swimming… Watching the race is always good to know what to improve round after round, but i just have to guess from what whitnesses saw…
He is getting better day after day, regarding jet lag and sleep so time is in our favour (he arrived from Moscow a day before me, on wednesday). Age may be a factor as ive spoke to older athletes who are suffering more from the double Moscow + Melbourne and jet lag.

My athlete is a living miracle. I wonder how he can do so well. He feels he is here for nothing as he will receive (when we do not know) from his Fed only half of the money of his plane ticket and accomodation here. In case of win there will be no bonus. Going to the call room just before his heat, he was told he had been given a wrong bib number by his Fed officials. That’s only few things from the long list of stupidities we ve been through here. He is exhausted and hates to wear his national suits (at least he has one here because in Moscow, the Fed didn’t gave him one so he ran in black).

I have to add that the Australians volonteers are fantastic people, very kind and helpful, offering coffees and fruits for my long hours in the accreditation centers. All the hotels are booked for a long time so i know that if one night i have nowhere to sleep, one of them can take me to their home. They are great i tell you! The stadium looks like fantastic with big full crowds, what a support and recognition it should be for the athletes.

I’m so happy to be have the privilege to be in Autralia working with a fantastic athlete. Semis and finals are this afternoon.
Speek later and wish us good luck!

MAGNIFIQUE PJ !

I hope you get together with your great young champion and party hard, but not so he is too wrecked for the relay

I hope he appreciates how loyal you are to him and the bullshit you have endured just to get him to the starting line, much less onto the podium.

I was interested from a technical aspect on his deliberate-lookng arm action on the downswing in front of the body. I think it helped him keep an open running position with lift which enabled him to hang in for the medal in those dying metres of the 100m final.

And his start and acceleration phase were just superb. He is a good student and you have just demonstrated that you are a master coach.

Now you must try to find Sprint_Coach and settle the nerves (or at least help hide them from SC’s 400m star )

OH, and yes please, another “Postcard” detailing as much as you can recall of your harrowing :eek: yet wonderful day will be Very Welcome.

[Charlie_Francis]

@kitkat1

MAGNIFIQUE PJ !

I hope you get together with your great young champion and party hard, but not so he is too wrecked for the relay

I hope he appreciates how loyal you are to him and the bullshit you have endured just to get him to the starting line, much less onto the podium.

I was interested from a technical aspect on his deliberate-lookng arm action on the downswing in front of the body. I think it helped him keep an open running position with lift which enabled him to hang in for the medal in those dying metres of the 100m final.

And his start and acceleration phase were just superb. He is a good student and you have just demonstrated that you are a master coach.

Now you must try to find Sprint_Coach and settle the nerves (or at least help hide them from SC’s 400m star )

OH, and yes please, another “Postcard” detailing as much as you can recall of your harrowing :eek: yet wonderful day will be Very Welcome.

Congratulations! Maybe they’ll splurge and send your guy a full ticket!!

[Charlie_Francis]

How about an article for L’Equipe? Maybe that will help with expenses. The more aggrivation, the better the story- so it might even out!

[sprinterouge]

Maybe they’ll splurge and send your guy a full ticket!!

LOL! LOL! LOL!

[system]

Congrats on a fine job PJ!

Rupert
CharlieFrancis.com

[Nikoluski]

@Charlie_Francis

How about an article for L’Equipe? Maybe that will help with expenses. The more aggrivation, the better the story- so it might even out!

Great idea, Charlie!
Yes, you do that, PJ!

[pierrejean]

Dear all !

What can i say … i’m proud of him, he is still very excited, everybody looks at him differently now, Linford Christie went to congratulate him, etc… This is a new situation we will have to work on.

Let me share with you what was our Melbourne pre-competition plan :

first day :
Heats : let Gardener win that race and run a 10.4

QF : let Frater win the race and do a 10.3

He did just that, good job.

Now the word was : the competition beggins tomorrow from the semi finals. A BBC journalist asked him about his expectations for the final, Olu replied a medal. The journalist said but how is it possible you’ve run only a 10.3 !
This has been discussed already in the forum, when its about 4 round competition you better not overqualify.

Second day :
semi final he was very focused on what he was doing, the warm up was about 1 hour (+30min call room) instead of 45min the previous day. I told him that 10.1 was required here and to focus on his own line only, go straight forward. I usually dont speak much, so that the few things are said gets importance.
He did just that. Like Kit Kat said, good student.
Before the final he was a little bit unsure of himself and my only role was to keep his body up and give him confidence. Only light superficial massage and 5 drills and 2 or 3 accels with spikes were enough. the advice was to go straight forward and to maintain the same mechanics after 60m. Due to logistical problems (travels for visa) he missed several SE workouts from January, and didnt went farhter than 120m at full speed at training, he did it only twice.
Then he went to the call room and could do nothing anymore for him.
The final was ok i watched it on TV since i was not allowed to go to the stadium.
Then, the problems came back. I didnt saw him until 01:00 AM. I managed to find out that he was caught by the doping protocol and no official from his Fed was there to escort him. The medical team phoned the officials so that one of them come back to the stadium with their car. I met these officials in the dining, and they pretended that the doping protocol room was closed and nobody there. It was a lie of course, since right after the race, they went to the dining and didn’t moved. Then, they accused me of not escorting my athlete during the protocol. These were the same persons who refused to accredit me… I have no word to describe how stupid and sad it was, anyway i just turned back and left the place in order to not create argument.
Olu finally came back with a taxi at 1 am, alone with his medal and a little green flag. He was all over the place and pissed off, fortunately he didnt met any officials in the way to his room, because he would have killed them. I managed to sleep inside the village in cheating with tired and bored security people so late in this night…
He slept maybe 1 hour or 2. Today he is still quite nervous and has described his race at least a thousand of time to his teammates, and of course officials who were sooooo pleased… Where were they when Olu came from Moscow after his fine 5th place? Nobody to welcome him at the airport, like all the other countries do. They said on newspapers that he failed in Moscow and would be lucky to reach final in Melbourne. We dont count on them to give the second part of the bill, anyway the athlete havent received yet the first half…

An other aspect of this is the double World Champs on 10 March (3 rounds) and Commonwealth on 19-20 March (4 rounds). Olu was one of the few who tried it, and the only finalist at both. This has also been discussed in the forum before, as Charlie stated that with a Short to Long program it was possible to make this double, especially since the 60m was before the 100m. I think all the other guys in Melbourne final use a Long to Short program and none of them came close to PB so early in the season. This story is an other example of the superiority of a S to L program in this kind of situation, so THANK YOU Charlie to have made this forum available i have learned so much here. THANK YOU all for you knid messages and i hope this is the first step for a great career for whatever country he will compete for. As for L Equipe lets see but remember than Commonwealth Games are worthless in France.

To finish, we wish prompt recovery to Jason Gardener who suffered from sciatica injury and couldnt advance to the semis.

And GOOD LUCK to Sprint-Coach’s 400m runner i hope to find a way to see the race soemwhere.

[Charlie_Francis]

@pierrejean

Dear all !

What can i say … i’m proud of him, he is still very excited, everybody looks at him differently now, Linford Christie went to congratulate him, etc… This is a new situation we will have to work on.

Let me share with you what was our Melbourne pre-competition plan :

first day :
Heats : let Gardener win that race and run a 10.4

QF : let Frater win the race and do a 10.3

He did just that, good job.

Now the word was : the competition beggins tomorrow from the semi finals. A BBC journalist asked him about his expectations for the final, Olu replied a medal. The journalist said but how is it possible you’ve run only a 10.3 !
This has been discussed already in the forum, when its about 4 round competition you better not overqualify.

Second day :
semi final he was very focused on what he was doing, the warm up was about 1 hour (+30min call room) instead of 45min the previous day. I told him that 10.1 was required here and to focus on his own line only, go straight forward. I usually dont speak much, so that the few things are said gets importance.
He did just that. Like Kit Kat said, good student.
Before the final he was a little bit unsure of himself and my only role was to keep his body up and give him confidence. Only light superficial massage and 5 drills and 2 or 3 accels with spikes were enough. the advice was to go straight forward and to maintain the same mechanics after 60m. Due to logistical problems (travels for visa) he missed several SE workouts from January, and didnt went farhter than 120m at full speed at training, he did it only twice.
Then he went to the call room and could do nothing anymore for him.
The final was ok i watched it on TV since i was not allowed to go to the stadium.
Then, the problems came back. I didnt saw him until 01:00 AM. I managed to find out that he was caught by the doping protocol and no official from his Fed was there to escort him. The medical team phoned the officials so that one of them come back to the stadium with their car. I met these officials in the dining, and they pretended that the doping protocol room was closed and nobody there. It was a lie of course, since right after the race, they went to the dining and didn’t moved. Then, they accused me of not escorting my athlete during the protocol. These were the same persons who refused to accredit me… I have no word to describe how stupid and sad it was, anyway i just turned back and left the place in order to not create argument.
Olu finally came back with a taxi at 1 am, alone with his medal and a little green flag. He was all over the place and pissed off, fortunately he didnt met any officials in the way to his room, because he would have killed them. I managed to sleep inside the village in cheating with tired and bored security people so late in this night…
He slept maybe 1 hour or 2. Today he is still quite nervous and has described his race at least a thousand of time to his teammates, and of course officials who were sooooo pleased… Where were they when Olu came from Moscow after his fine 5th place? Nobody to welcome him at the airport, like all the other countries do. They said on newspapers that he failed in Moscow and would be lucky to reach final in Melbourne. We dont count on them to give the second part of the bill, anyway the athlete havent received yet the first half…

An other aspect of this is the double World Champs on 10 March (3 rounds) and Commonwealth on 19-20 March (4 rounds). Olu was one of the few who tried it, and the only finalist at both. This has also been discussed in the forum before, as Charlie stated that with a Short to Long program it was possible to make this double, especially since the 60m was before the 100m. I think all the other guys in Melbourne final use a Long to Short program and none of them came close to PB so early in the season. This story is an other example of the superiority of a S to L program in this kind of situation, so THANK YOU Charlie to have made this forum available i have learned so much here. THANK YOU all for you knid messages and i hope this is the first step for a great career for whatever country he will compete for. As for L Equipe lets see but remember than Commonwealth Games are worthless in France.

To finish, we wish prompt recovery to Jason Gardener who suffered from sciatica injury and couldnt advance to the semis.

And GOOD LUCK to Sprint-Coach’s 400m runner i hope to find a way to see the race soemwhere.

This is a terrific discription of the value of tenacity in the face of thoughtlessness and stupidity from a federation.
Great coaching. Great raceplan. Geat athlete.
Great job!

[kitkat1]

WOOHOOOO!!! Sprint-Coach’s guy has reached the 400 FINAL !

Semifinals Men’s 400m
Rk Bib Country - Name Birth Date Lane Reaction Time Results Qualified Record
Type
1 1564 JAM
SPENCE Lansford 15/12/1982 5 0.323 45.32 Q
2 1356 ENG
ROONEY Martyn 03/04/1987 3 0.221 45.35 Q PB
3 1903 RSA
GORRIES Paul 28/02/1981 6 0.177 45.41 SB
4 2128 TRI
MODIBO Ato 19/03/1979 4 0.256 45.44
5 1152 BAH
MONCUR Avard 02/11/1978 2 0.166 45.72 SB
6 1787 NGR
WELGOPWA Saul 14/06/1984 1 0.168 46.12
7 1424 FIJ
VEREKAUTA Niko 16/02/1987 7 0.189 46.28 PB
8 1081 AUS
WROE Sean 18/03/1985 8 0.207 46.47

Qualification: First 2 in each heat (Q) and the next 2 fastest (q) advance to the next round

…

Semifinals Men’s 400m
Rk Bib Country - Name Birth Date Lane Reaction Time Results Qualified Record
Type
1 1072 AUS
STEFFENSEN John 30/08/1982 5 0.283 45.05 Q PB
2 1473 GRN
FRANCIQUE Alleyne 07/06/1976 3 0.215 45.36 Q SB
3 1556 JAM
GONZALES Jermaine 26/11/1984 6 0.350 45.38 PB
4 1778 NGR
GODDAY James 09/01/1984 4 0.308 45.80
5 1625 KEN
MUSEMBI Wambua 26/04/1977 7 0.370 46.34
6 1911 RSA
MOGAWANE Iginitius 20/02/1982 8 0.350 46.46
7 1747 MRI
MILAZAR Eric 01/06/1975 1 0.254 46.48
8 1201 BOT
MASHETO Gakologelwang 01/11/1984 2 0.150 46.97

…

Semifinals Men’s 400m
Rk Bib Country - Name Birth Date Lane Reaction Time Results False Starts Qualified
1 1146 BAH
BROWN Christopher 15/08/1978 6 0.182 45.24 Q
2 1203 BOT
MOLEFE California 12/03/1980 3 0.289 45.36 FS 1 Q
3 1361 ENG
TOBIN Robert 20/12/1983 4 0.236 45.74
4 1552 JAM
CLARKE Davian 30/04/1976 7 0.213 45.74
5 1046 AUS
HILL Clinton 19/04/1980 1 0.206 45.86
6 1927 RSA
VAN DER MERWE Jan 16/03/1984 2 0.250 45.93
7 1312 DMA
LLOYD Chris 10/10/1980 5 0.162 46.24
8 2122 TRI
BARRY Damion 03/03/1982 8 0.418 46.96

[John]

Great work PJ

Since when have semi finals been over 3 races?

[DMA]

Well done PJ. Great to see an athlete with trust in the people who matter, and not let officialdom get in the way.

[kitkat1]

@pierrejean

Dear all !

As for L Equipe lets see but remember than Commonwealth Games are worthless in France.
.

PJ, brilliant Postcard

As you say, the Commonwealth Games are worthless in France . . . but the performances of the athlete and his coach must stand. And so now you both come to the dance with plenty of cache. You both produced such a professional result in the most amateurish environment.

It is a disgrace that personal coaches remain persona non grata at the championships when really these are the men and women backing 99 per cent of the competitors across the events. :mad:

As for L’equipe, the quality of your writing in the Postcards from Melbourne will make it their loss if you do not make a report or if they do not accept it.

[Charlie_Francis]

@kitkat1

PJ, brilliant Postcard

As you say, the Commonwealth Games are worthless in France . . . but the performances of the athlete and his coach must stand. And so now you both come to the dance with plenty of cache. You both produced such a professional result in the most amateurish environment.

It is a disgrace that personal coaches remain persona non grata at the championships when really these are the men and women backing 99 per cent of the competitors across the events. :mad:

As for L’equipe, the quality of your writing in the Postcards from Melbourne will make it their loss if you do not make a report or if they do not accept it.

It’s not just personal coaches who are personna non grata for many countries- it is athletes as well. They all cut in to the number of bureaucrats who can attend and the magnitude of their freeloading.

[system]

@kitkat1

As for L’equipe, the quality of your writing in the Postcards from Melbourne will make it their loss if you do not make a report or if they do not accept it.

How about for the Forum newsletter?