… was held this week-end in Warwick.
Speakers included Tom Tellez, Loren Seagrave, Michael Afilaka, Wigert Thunnissen, James Hillier and myself.
About 250 persons from 16 countries attended and the organisation by UKA was great.
Tom Tellez went through the technique of starting-blocks, acceleration, top speed, hurdling, plus private sessions on the lobby on shot put, discus & javelin throw. At 79 and in top shape he did all the exercises hismelf displaying an extraordinary enthousiasm. When i left the restaurant on Saturday night, he was coaching a half-dozen of students in showing them how to sprint, and in the morning before the breakfast he was already there for a sprint demonstration for other students!
Loren Seagrave’s presentations were about planning strategy, starting blocks, hurdles with videos, graphs and tables.
Michael Afilaka analysed the development of raising star Adam Gemili, sharing sample programs and exercises on video.
Wigert Thunnissen explained how Dutch 4x1 became one of the most efficient relay team of the World in planning strategy to make the best out of a below standard pool of sprinters.
I didn’t attended to James Hillier’s presentation as he was speaking at the same time as me, but i think he spoke about hurdles. Mine was about a history of sprint training, showing timelines of the major phases in the past two centuries using documentation (included a graph made by Charlie about overspeed) to illustrate those trends.
The last day i shared a round table with friends Kevin Tyler and Tony Hadley for debate on 400m with the crowd.
Overall a great week-end and people went away with too much information of course, but hopefully they will transform it into useful tools for their own practice, and this brainstorming is necessary to make us better coaches.