Martin McElroy
Martin has coached in UK, Ireland and Canada, a specialist in mens sweep he won Olympic Gold in Sydney 2000. We talk leadership, governance and good coaching.
Timestamps to the show
03:00 Background in rowing
05:30 from Imperial College in 1995 where Bill Mason was coaching GB womens 8
09:30 How does junior rowing need to change to support rowing up to its Olympic peak? Do junior medalist become senior medalists?
18:00 Age group rowing and making ability the decider for crew selection
22:00 Year 12 is the finale of school and this year there’s no Canadian Henley so they join clubs
24:30 Comparison between UK, Ireland and Canada for their international rowing system.
30:00 What you need in sport – at lower levels people putting things in place to catalyse action
35:00 Sanita Puspure’s development as an athlete
39:00 My 1997 life lesson in understanding athlete resilience and injury to survive the training.
45:00 The expectation set by Governance in rowing is critical. Rowing suffers from homophily – recruiting in your own likeness. e.g. no debrief after the Olympics is poor governance and poor leadership
52:00 Was the technique you coached at ICBC different from Billy Mason’s Janousek inspired technique? Harry Mahon helped me take the coaching to another level.
56:30 How did you teach the harmony with the boat? Power wasn’t the solution – you need efficiency too.
1:00:00 Jurgen Grobler’s programme made the guys strong. After Cologne World Champs I spoke to Thor Nilsson and Jurgen and the power wasn’t yet right. We assessed recovery and how to time the training sessions.
1:04:00 Bert Cocu asked are there countries with their own rowing style? When you rate over 28 all the crews start to look the same
1:10:00 How to blend styles to make a national rowing technique
1:13:00 Robin Williams said the best way to row is to be in a boat with better athletes. The second best way is to be side by side with a better crew. The third best way is to coach.
1:11:00 I just want people to enjoy moving the boat.
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