After London Olympics we have new information to
analyze in order to improve as a team, as an individual and as a nation. What happened to Australia in London? According to the news and respecting what Australia
is and has accomplished we have the following:
It’s no secret – Australia underperformed at the 2012
London Olympics. But was the criticism directed at our Olympians unfair on the
athletes, coaches, and support staff who worked so hard, and gave up so much in
the lead-up to the Games?
“Was it team disunity? Or too much pre-event tweeting?
Maybe the work ethic of the current crop isn't what it should be? Are the best
of Australia's swimming coaches being lured by big dollars to train Chinese
nationals? And a seemingly ridiculous question: should bearded swimmers be
compelled to shave? Could it have been Magnusson's beard that ended his run for
gold? It is all open to investigation, though Suzie O'Neill says there'll be no
witch-hunt… “
If this is a multiple-choice test, I would say all of
the above. What is more important is
what we can do about it. It all depends
on our political point of view; unfortunately, performance does not have politics
but solid knowledge/experience/honesty.
Most of the non-competitors are concerned about sports
in Australia; but the best swimmers feel they are fine. This is something to consider because
athletes/swimmers are the ones that perform at the end of the chains in order
to get gold. Of course, we do not speak of individual efforts as in nations
like Mexico where the sport culture and infrastructure related to it is
practically non-existent: “The problem, as Watt sees it, is that the
media views silver and bronze as disappointing results. “The team is happy, the
coach is happy. I got thousands of messages [from] back home that they are
happy. The only people that are not happy are you guys. So you need to wake
up," he admonished.”’
Regarding triathlon we have shown what Macca has said
in an interview: “The kids are good. The Brownlees
are exceptional. THE SPORT IS MOVED MANY
NOTCHES…The sport is huge now… The Aussies do well… We live on our successes in
the 90´s.”
3
juin 2012 TRIATHLON HISTORY AND MACCA, in this
blog. www.triathlonmag.com.au/news/445-chris-mccormack-on-australian-triathlon-team-a-ironman-cairns
Macca knows that triathlon Australia has been falling
behind for the world standards and it is not what it was 10 years ago. Let´s take a look at the technique of the
current triathletes compared to the last runners from Australia who got gold
running in the Olympic Games with great times even if we compare their times
now:
Brad Kahlefeldt, today´s
number one Australian triathlete, does not have the technique of the great
runners from the 60´s, Herb Elliott and Ralph Doubell.
Elliott and Doubell
were the greatest “Crocodile” Dundees.
After they retired running, Australia did not produce any generation of
runners and the coaches were not as good as Percy Cerutty and Franz Stampfl.
Herb Elliott: Yes, I'm not too sure that's the advantage of sport
these days. I think science can be used by an athlete as an excuse for not
training the way in which they should. But what legacy did he leave? Well, he's
left a huge legacy in me personally, but what legacy has he left in the land? I
think that talking to today's athletes, I find that there are two things which
all champions have in common, maybe more than two, but two I can talk about
straight off. One is that every champion is a person who accepts responsibility
totally for their own sporting destiny; and the other one is the quality versus
quantity issue. Athletes are constantly confronted with the decision, maybe
they don't realize it quite as clearly as it being a decision, but it is,
between quantity of training and quality of training, particularly today when
athletes are getting paid more money and it's easier for them to not work, so
they can extend their training sessions out for much longer periods of time.
The area that suffers then is quality. And I guess the message that Cerutty
always gave was 'When you're out on the track, there is nobody there but you.
God is not with you, I am not with you, your Mum and Dad are not with you,
you've just got that show to yourself. You have to be utterly and totally
independent and you must accept total responsibility for what it is that you're
going to do on that day and all of the processes that we're going to get you
there.' So that's a message he gave fifty years ago. And the other message of
quality versus quantity, he was always one who believed in intensity, in
training, the pain was the way to go forward, and today, science doesn't
necessarily preach that, and I think science is wrong.
We spoke about
EDUCATION in triathlon in previous posts, and what Elliott says it has to do
with how we educate athletes. We cannot
speak of quality of training if we do not speak about quality of education. I have read that there are coaches who believe
that eating three times a week in McDonalds do not interfere with performance. It is simple common sense, please see, 28
juin 2012 Technique the Second Most Important
Thing to Win in Triathlon
Armstrong has said it, and
it is the reason why he has been persecuted and even banned to compete in
ironman; because he has spoken clearly (February
16, 2012. ARMSTRONG, THE GREATEST PRODUCT OF OUR SCIENCE in this
blog). Anyone with his attitude toward
competition and his physical, which is not unique, can do what he did without
the use of enhancing drugs. What he did is doable, but we need to be educated
in many aspects. Unfortunately, there
are no people around who can do such a team work and pay “attention to
details.”
In 2007, Armstrong was
interviewed by Ciclismo a fondo. 267:
46. He said: “The reason why Johan and I
were able to win was because we competed against a bunch of imbeciles. We had a modern planning…There were a bunch
of ranchers running around us…still the same situation in cycling.”
I will finish this
post with Albert Einstein:
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