http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23098467-5014066,00.html
Ross joins Asafa’s team
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By Mike Hurst
January 24, 2008 12:00am
WORLD record-holder Asafa Powell has accepted a request from national 100m titleholder Josh Ross to join his training party when he comes to Australia next month.
Powell, who lowered his own 100m record to 9.74sec last August, will return to competition over 400m in Kingston on Saturday before competing in Sydney (February 16) and Melbourne (February 21).
Ross, who missed three weeks of track training after reacting badly to acupuncture treatment, is due to return to serious competition in Saturday’s Canberra Classic.
The initiative to enter the “enemy” camp came from Ross’s new coach Paul Nancarrow and was facilitated by Athletics Australia’s top agent Maurie Plant after dialogue with the big Jamaican’s coach Steven Francis.
“I have no real problem with Ross’s request,” Francis advised Plant in an email.
"From a practical point of view, however, the kind of sessions that we will be doing in Australia would not be the kind of workouts that he would need to be doing, especially with the National Championships in a week.
“Our workouts are the type of stuff that Ross would be doing in November-December. Having stated this, if he thinks that it will be beneficial for him to come it will be no problem.”
Nancarrow was delighted to have had Ross accepted, saying: "I’d just like to expose him to that atmosphere so he can see how they prepare before a session and how they recover.
“It may help also to make a few friends, so when he goes overseas again he’ll know a few people and we won’t get a repeat of what happened in Europe last year when he became pretty isolated and depressed.”
Ross, winner of the past four Australian 100m titles, made a very late start to training for the Olympic season but had been sprinting well until the acupuncture episode left him with “pins and needles” whenever he put his foot on the track.
“I was running hand-timed 6.3sec to 60m but then missed three weeks training. The 6.3 is still there. I hope to find it again soon,” Ross told The Daily Telegraph yesterday.
"I’m definitely really excited about training with Asafa and others in his squad, including Michael Frater and Darrel Brown (2005 and 2003 world championship 100m silver medallists, respectively.)
“My whole career I’ve never trained with anyone who was actually faster than me. This will be good.”
The Canberra line-up includes Matt Shirvington, Adam Miller, Stawell Gift titleholder Nathan Allen (coached by Gerrard Keating) and rising Victorian stars Daniel Burgess and Adrian Mott.