12th November 2012 01:19
The three day conference, which was supported by European Athletics, UK Athletics, England Athletics, Leeds Metropolitan University and the Ron Pickering Memorial Fund, focused on performance and development. The conference included practical sessions and covered a number of different features of race walking including specialisation, event investment, peak performance and career maintenance.
Coaches shared evidence based practice, and an insight from those outside of race walking provided a thorough and challenging conference that ended by revising the declaration that was made at the first European Race Walking Conference in 2010.
The conference was opened by famous Portuguese coach Paulo Murta. During his keynote presentation he gave a detailed description of the progression path of Ana Cabecinha, the two-time Olympian and Portuguese record holder for the women's 20 km walk, who he has coached since she was 11.
He discussed the all-round athletic training performed by young athletes in the sampling phase of their development, e.g. about age 10-14; progressing to specialisation at about age 15-16; and then the activities as athletes invest in training for high performance.
Ireland's Olive Loughnane, silver medallist at the 2009 World Championships in the women's 20km walk, gave an in-depth interview reflecting on the role of coaching in her career that spans over a decade and half including four Olympic Games.
Malcolm Brown, former Director of Sport at Leeds Metropolitan University and Olympic Performance Manager, British Triathlon, London 2012, discussed the performance management challenges of coaching Olympic champion Alistair Brownlee during his keynote presentation.
He explained the three way interaction between coach, athlete and environment, giving examples of training progression and carefully building a support team over a number of years.
Dr. Andi Drake, head coach, England Athletics, National Centre for Race Walking, and one of the organisers of the conference, said, 'We were delighted with the way our presenters tackled our themes of performance and development.
'Over the course of three days we touched upon: introduction to sport and event sampling; specialising; event investment; peak performance and career maintenance. Our delegates were treated and challenged by the conference with shared evidence-based practice from coaches and practitioners working inside and outside the race walking event group. There was an even split between the lecture theatre and the coaching space in practical workshops; and the conference ended by revisiting and revising the declaration made at the 1st European Race Walking Conference.'
Andrew Manley, a sport psychologist with Carnegie Faculty at the Leeds Metropolitan University, led a workshop on developing an understanding of each other's roles in working with developing athletes.
Alison Rose and Oli Williamson, of Coach House Physiotherapy Clinic, along with Andy Walling of Athlete Matters and Salomon Trail Running, led a workshop on functional movement screening for race walk athletes, with event-specific examples from their practice with developing and international team race walkers.
Martin Rush and Dave Rowland of England Athletics National Coach Mentors presented a workshop on conditioning for race walking using technical examples from the 2012 Olympic Games.
2012 Finnish Olympic race walk coach Marko Kivimaki reflected on his work at the IAAF Training Centre in Kuortane related to development programmes to move athletes to the Finnish junior team.
Ireland's Brian Hanley, a biomechanist with the Carnegie Faculty at the Leeds Metropolitan University, led a workshop on injury in race walking, focusing on the two most common injury sites: the shin and hamstrings (based on data collected at the 2012 World Race Walking Cup from 50 athletes).
On the Saturday evening the conference dinner was hosted by Headingley Stadium, the home of Yorkshire County Cricket Club, Leeds Rhinos rugby league team and rugby union team Leeds Carnegie.