Paralympic Coaching and Athlete Excellence

[H1]TITLE

PARA-ARCHERY – STEPHEN JENNISON, Coach Mentor, Archery Australia

I first picked up a bow when I was about 7 years old – 57 years ago! Back in the late 50s and early 60s in the UK, we all had either a bow or a set of pistols in our hands (cowboy and Indians was the game to play. Like all kids, I start doing all sorts of sports, playing rugby for most of my early life, as well as archery for a while. Archery was something to do as part of the school’s program, rather than being performance driven.

In 1973 I immigrated to Australia at age 21. Funnily enough, I’d come 10-12,000 miles and met my wife who was from Scotland! I was playing rugby union & league as well as competition squash while my wife was participating in netball. One day we decided to try to find a sport we could do together and heard about an archery club nearby in Sydney. I’d play touch football on a Sunday morning, rush home to change, then spend the afternoon relaxing at archery as a hobby. But because of the way my wife and I are, we both got a bit competitive about it!

I had to stop for a while as I damaged my elbows playing football, but I was very involved and interested in developing skills in other people. I started getting into the coaching accreditation programs to lift my qualification level in 1980. By the end of the 80s, I was involved with the Archery Australia National Sports Programme run at the AIS in Canberra. It was in this environment that I was able to increase my coaching skills under mentor coaches.

I then undertook the role of Archery New South Wales Coach and was appointed as Archery Australia National Coaching Director. Whilst in this role and in conjunction with Archery Australia Board members undertook developing an ASC/AOC initiative (Gold Medal Plan) Identify initiatives that Archery Australia believed was required to win Gold in 200 if Australia was successful in winning the 2000 Games. Part of the plan was to appoint a Head Coach/High Performance Manager. After Australia was appointed Hosts of the 2000 Olympic Games Archery Australia moved to implement the “Gold Medal Plan” At his stage I thought I’d throw my hat in the ring for the National Coach position and was successful in my application.

Part of my task was to head hunt the best coaches in the world .I approached Korean Head Coach Lee KiSik and subsequently managed to have him relocate to Australia and be appointed as Head Coach. By 1997 ongoing stress within my role and being located in Canberra away from my young family in Sydney I decided to resign from the role and coach locally.

[H2]MENTORING BOTH ATHLETE AND COACH

The program continued and we won the gold medal in 2000 and a bronze at the 2004 Athens Olympics. While we had a Paralympic team in Sydney and one Female spot in 2004 we had no representatives in either 2008 or 2012. More recently however Jonathan Milne qualified one spot for Australia in Rio at the Parra World Championships in 2015. I was approached to see if I would be interested in being the Paralympic coach based on my previous experience, and was appointed to that position.

It soon became apparent that as we only had the one athlete position at the Paralympics, and that Jonathan already had a personal coach it seemed to me regardless of experience levels, that the ideal situation to maximise performance at the Games would be to have his personal coach continuing to work with him with myself acting more in the performance management role. I put this proposal to the Archery Australia Board who were very responsive, which allowed me to become a coach-mentor to Jonathan’s coach, Richie. This delivered the best outcome as we were able to develop both Richie and Jonathan skills simultaneously.

Richie works with several athletes and is as driven as Jonathan to become the best in his field. As a coach he’s looking for opportunities and is being considered nationally for ongoing development in the High Performance Coaching Role.

My involvement with Jonathon is around skill acquisition, and then working with Richie to enhance his skills and overall coaching management. Working within a local club or National level is one thing, but going to a major international event like the Games is a completely different environment. Because of my experience, I was able to talk Richie through this to ensure he’s prepared as well as Jonathan. Part of the mentoring process is to help him develop a more scientific approach in some of his decision-making, ensuring those decisions are based on real data and evidence that will enhance his coaching skills. Jonathan is extremely receptive in regards to things that may enhance his performance. It’s not just skill acquisition, but also learning to be more professional in the way we go about implementing change and tracking performance.

[H2]PARAS ON PAR WITH THE WORLD’S BEST

Para-archery is a small sector of an already small sport. There are people at different disability levels, although very few at high performance level. They are all able toshoot with their able-bodied counterparts, shooting the same distances. There are some considerations in regard to their level of disability and how it affects that they can do. For example, stability on the shooting line is affected, as a lot of athletes have limited or no core stability. In this case, there are rules depending on the athlete’s classification as to how much strapping they are allowed. Also, they may be shooting at a tournament for 4-6 hours, with shooting brackets for up to an hour at a time where they have to stay stationary on the shooting line – rain or blistering hot sun.

There are considerations for recovery, to ensure we have good strategies for mental and physical fitness, and protecting them as much as we can. These are things you wouldn’t normally have to do as much with an able-bodied athlete. However, the gear is the same as anybody uses in the world championships, and the performance level isn’t very much different either. Paralympian archers can also compete in the Olympics archery events. There are two bows that are in use for the Paralympics: compound and recurve. In the Olympics, they are only allowed to shoot with the recurve bow, as the compound bow has additional pulleys.

Part of Jonathan’s preparations has been to shoot in every able-bodied competition he can, and his benchmark is against the world’s best. He ranks in the top 4 or 5 in Australia in the able-bodied rankings on any given day. Because Jonathan is 6’9, he draws a long bow with an extremely long draw length. Jonathon and Ricci have recently competed in two World cup events in China and Turkey as part of the Archery Australia Compound Team gaining additional experience and understand what’s involved at that level of competition in preparation for Rio. His performances have been steadily increasing with a PB being shot 4 weeks prior to departure to Rio of 704 out of 720 with the world record standing (able bodied) at 717. Without adding to the pressure of competition by lumping high expectations on him, Jonathon is will represent Australia well and if things go well, is definitely in medal contention.

The APC have been incredible with their level of support – they’re all about how they can help you get maximum performance. In the end, our job is to ensure that when Jonathan goes out to his match at the Paralympics, that he’ll be able to look back and say there’s not one thing he could have done different in his preparation.

Part of my role is also to look ahead to 2020 in Tokyo. Hopefully Jonathan will be one of the mainstays for that program and team.

TOP TIP

A coach needs to have aspirations, as an athlete does. They have to be driven to improve their performance, their proficiency and skill sets. You need to devote yourself to try to achieve your goals and also be able to have life balance, ensuring that the people around you are involved in the journey as well.

ONES TO WATCH

There’s some very competent shooters around, particularly the Germans, English and Americans. However at the end of the day you can get too caught up in how your competitors are performing. You can’t control that. You can only prepare to ensure that you are the best YOU can be.