Maintaining Standards
ATHLETICS SA (ASA) is reviving its yearly coaching symposium after an absence of more than a decade.
But its first one in Bloemfontein this weekend will be without the country’s four Olympic medalwinning mentors.
There’s nothing sinister about it — they all have prior engagements — and Hugo Badenhorst, the jumps coach who is helping to arrange the conference, is hopeful they will be on track for a full house next year.
ASA’s acting chief executive, Richard Stander, believes the conference, from 1997 until the mid2000s, as well as the coach training courses that also fell by the way, were the reason behind the sport’s success internationally.
The South African track and field team’s four medals at the Rio Games in August were the nation’s best Olympic haul to date, but Stander points out that the highest number of finals achieved dates back to Sydney 2000.
In Brazil, only five athletes finished among the top eight — medallists Wayde van Niekerk (400m), Caster Semenya (800m), Luvo Manyonga (long jump), Sunette Viljoen (javelin) and sprinter Akani Simbine in the men’s 100m.
Sixteen years ago there were eight, topped by high jump silver medallist Hestrie Cloete and bronze winners, discus thrower Frantz Kruger and 400m hurdler Llewellyn Herbert.
Stander said ASA was reviving the coaching qualification system where coaches could strive to attain level one, two or three qualifications.
He explained that level one was for school and club coaches; level two for coaches who had produced successful provincial athletes; and level three for coaches who had achieved success on the national stage.
Coaches had to perform to move up to the next level, Stander said, adding that level three was acquired only after submitting a research paper at the yearly symposium and which was accepted by their peers.
Thousands of coaches were qualified in the four years from 1997, he said. South Africa won four world championship gold medals at the 2001 and 2003 showpieces — courtesy of Cloete in both years, her male counterpart Jacques Freitag and the men’s 4x100m relay. Since then, South Africa has managed three.
A problem was the low survival BRONZE: Frantz Kruger got third in the discus at Sydney 2000 rate of coaches with only 5% sticking it out for the long haul, said Stander.
Terseus Liebenberg, coach of javelin star Viljoen, welcomed the revival of the symposium and qualification courses.
“People don’t speak the same language and it’s becoming a big problem,” said Liebenberg. “We should standardise [coaching levels] throughout the country.”