Steffensen under fire in return to Sydney

I believe he has based himself in WA this season not sure who is coaching him.

I could go one about some of the shit in my coaching carrer that will make Pauls problem pigeon shit. Nothing more than a storm in a teacup.

Also curious who his go between is.

Not getting paid for 3 months work, is not pigeon shit in my view.

Darrel Smith is the go between.

Darrell Smith has been in Australia for two weeks working with Steff and Nia Ali, a promising US female 100m hurdler.

I watched his 400m at the Sydney Track Classic today. To describe his behaviour after the race, including his interview, as utterly contemptible I think is putting it mildly. Narcissistic personality disorder & delusions of grandeur, is spot on!

Darrel Smith, John Smith’s son.

Coaching is the family business, having a son oversee the program of JS, guess it was always on the cards.

Darrell is John’s Nephew

I did a google, must have read it wrong. Any relation to John Steff

Compared to - not getting paid for 5 years, 1.2sec/100 improvement. Some one else gets the glory and $. I got over it, pideon shit.

It is just people/athletes, the way of the world.

Who cares it is all about me. lol with a :wink:

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/more-sports/a-new-punchline-for-steffensen/story-e6frey6i-1226275157011

A new punchline for Steffensen
by: Mike Hurst
From: The Daily Telegraph
February 20, 2012 12:00AM

London bound: John Steffensen. Picture: Phil Hillyard Source: The Daily Telegraph

JOHN Steffensen locked in his place on Australia’s Olympic 4x400m relay team and came a step closer to earning an individual run with a commanding 400m victory at the Sydney Track Classic at Homebush on Saturday.

With triple world boxing champion Jeff Fenech standing watch on the grandstand concourse, Steffensen received a lukewarm reception from the crowd when introduced and an equally muted response to his post-race interview despite his impressive run and encouraging time of 45.61sec.

Fenech does Steffensen’s padwork and it showed as the 2006 Commonwealth 400m champ kept his arms punching right to the line.

Steffensen is a flamboyant personality whose most recent effort to entertain served only to belittle his own relay teammates and distract from his own excellence as a master of 400m running.

“It was a murder scene out there, the way I murdered their little boys. Someone should call 000. It was a crime scene,” he said after a narrow win in Perth a week earlier.

The comment earned him a rebuke from Australia’s 100m hurdles world champion Sally Pearson, who said “slagging off” teammates was not on.

The reality is Steffensen is a class runner and does not need to imitate Muhammad Ali or Anthony Mundine in order to entertain. With Darrell Smith - a nephew of the world’s greatest 400m coach John Smith - in Australia to coach Steffensen (and US hurdler Nia Ali), the Olympic A-qualifying time of 45.20sec could come at the Melbourne Olympic Trials on March 1-3.

Certainly he has a great admirer in Athletics Australia’s head coach Eric Hollingsworth, who made a show of himself embracing Steffensen on the track after he had crossed the line, a public display of affection I saw no others receive.

And veteran Tamsyn Manou, 33, who won her 800m in Sydney (2:01.53) is also a fan: “John’s not being serious - it’s not how he is. He’s such a good teammate and he’s great to all of us.”

Yet Steffensen was far from the meet’s stand-out performer. That honour belonged to Kiwi Valerie Adams who won the shot put with a world-leading toss of 20.67m - 11cm further than her Olympic gold-medal effort in Beijing.

Adams’s performance was all but ignored by the meeting’s producers. She was not even interviewed over the stadium PA after her event. And obviously that is Steffensen’s point: he will never be overlooked.

Henry Frayne also excelled, beating the Olympic A-qualifying mark of 8.20m, making him Australia’s greatest long and triple combination jumper (8.27m and 17.09m), surpassing Phil May (8.02m and 17.02m) within a week .

The more people talk about you the more publicity you get. What newspaper nabbed her “silly sally”

Sally give her free publicity time to JS. bahahahaha

I totally disagree\ with your sentiments.

Did you give up full time employment to coach for 5 years without getting paid?

You are saying gave away full time work for 3 months to oversee someone elses program. I never realised there was that much money in coaching.

My advice will be to move on and learn from the experience.

Time to resume coaching hey Sady :

If somebody is coaching fulltime, they need a good business brain, as 99/100 they will be their own boss. You need contracts drawn, and payments set. Paid in advance or session to session at the least. Casual free trainingwith potential cash bonus = keep your day job.
Yout other options is to do what charlie did, run a side business whose cash flow supports the whole system. eg, bingo

guys what exactly happened between these athletes/people? sorry for being so ignorant but i honestly havent a clue what you guys are talking about.

thanks in advance for explaining

Hey Bold, nah :slight_smile:

A high profile coach and high profile athlete split, just the normal emotions being expressed after a breakup.

Having the natural talent to run very fast doesn’t excuse a person for being an obnoxious disrespectful pain in the arse. Steffensen’s conduct towards a lot of people in this sport over many years has left a lot to be desired. There’s no doubt at times he sought out a confrontation to ‘fire himself up’ regardless of the fall-out or the damage done to his own integrity. E.g. Attacking Glynis Nunn whilst she was coaching and taking out an AVO against the AA chairman were stupid acts from a person who thinks he doesn’t have to answer to anyone.

All most of us want is to sit back & enjoy Steffensen running fast when it matters and representing the “green & gold” with class, respect and dignity.

He WAS a top class 400m runner…when he was running sub 45s. A 45.6 on the weekend is very good in the scheme of current national 400m running, but it is not an Olympic qualifying time (45.25) so he still has some work to do to get an individual spot. I hope he does so we’ll have someone to barrack for in the heats of the 400 at the Olympics.

However we can do without the ‘gangsta crap’ - especially when it’s aimed at an impressive young man like Steve Solomon.