Constructive non-personal discussion of GB squad culture

[housewife]

Selection races are always tough weekends as everyone is competing against everyone else to make the team - where you finish in relation to those you might be staying with / friends with / training partners with really matters.

For a successful woc atmosphere the dynamic needs to be the opposite - you are striving to get the best performance out of both yourself and all of your team mates. Some people find this easier than others. If you have competed and trained with another athlete for a long time you might so used to automatically comparing your result with their result that it would be hard it to compare yourselves against them at woc too.

[andypat]

On a totally unrelated matter, did anybody else see "Fast girls" on the telly last night....

[maprun]

Which channel?

[roadrunner]

Looks like it was Film 4 - there doesn't seem to be a "catch up" service

[maprun]

Bum, next time. Thanks.

[andypat]

Its actually quite a good watch, although the baton handover technique displayed is not like anything I've ever seen on telly!

[JK]

...
At the risk of getting moderated...
I was quite taken aback by some strident and aggressive personal criticism at this year's selection races, not least because it involved a very excellent human being who I like a lot. Luckily, I don't give a monkey's cuss because I know I'm right , but it did bring home to me the level of stress these affairs put on people.

Sounds like you have the resilience to make an excellent TrailO Planner - they have been known to take some abuse from so-called "TrailO Rage".

[JK]

While O is predominantly an individual sport (although there are 2 relays now at WOC level) I don't believe that our individuals best performances would come from locking themselves away from their team-mates. There is much to be learned from sharing experiences, failures and successes.

The old adage of "success breeds success" explains why there are a fair number of decent French orienteers around just now; how many people can name a single French orienteer before TG came to the fore?

Cross Country Skiing and Biathlon are two sports which are similar in the balance between individual and team events that we have in O; due to the money in those sports the setup they have is very professional and most of them seem to thrive in the team environment. In fact after you see an individual do well you often see other team-mates improve their game.

As for whether there was a problem in the *structure* of the british squad well I'm not in a position to comment on such a statement, but my thoughts in general on team dynamics are:

• In any group of individuals there will be a variety of personalities. If you are trying to setup a "team" then you need to ensure that there is a balance to this team. If OTOH you are creating a squad of individuals then you pretty much have to go with what you have.
• Given that you have a squad of individuals it is up to the coaches and team managers to identify and manage any friction between conflicting personalities. Of course this is by no means easy and any failure to manage this has to be shared between all concerned.

[Toni]

If it was an individual sport I would have dropped out long ago.... I've made some of my best friends in the sport and if it wasn't for them, when I've been injured I would have found it really tough. The squad (of whatever nationality) is others who know what it is like to mess up a race, to have months of injury, to get selected/not get selected - someone to share all those things with that you your friends who don't do this just don't get. I think it would be virtually impossible for anyone to enjoy the sport without that group of friends in a squad - so I think the discussion of whether there should be a squad is not a good one (personally). I think instead it should be about how individuals prepare themselves for being part of a squad because that isn't always easy at times of stress. And some individuals, possibly mainly girls (but I can think of some stressed boys too ) need to look specifically at how they manage this and I'm sure coaches who have experienced this can help with ideas on how to deal with it....

[DIDSCO]

Thought this article about the Australian triathlete team was quite good. I have no idea about the British squad nowadays but reading whats been said on this thread it sounds like there's serious room for improvement. Feel sorry for Cat, Harry, and other members of the team that there isn't really a sound system in place when clashes happen and also stop problems/clashes ever developing in to something big.British orienteering has so little breadth in the elite it needs to make sure it looks after all its top and up and coming athletes as best it can.


http://www.ausport.gov.au/sportscoachma ... nvironment

[graeme]

Here's the Danish model. It's ultra-successful, but it involves a brutal culture of forcing people to live in Aarhus, which has terrain no better than the UK, and trimming anyone outside the very top. Another curious feature is that below the super-elite level “everybody is welcome”: no divisive selection below the WOC level, simply "come and have a go if you think you're hard enough". DIDSCO says that our elite has little breadth - which may be true - but begs the question why our selective squad is so much larger than Denmark's.

Aarhus doesn't sound like a good life-balance, so I'm not especially advocating this. But if we must have a GB squad*, we should at least understand why we aren't adopting the model that works.

*As opposed to a team - obviously we want one of those!

[Kitch]

working together as a team or squad leads to greater improvement and success all round.

If this weren't the case then every successful nation would not have a squad system.

Consider it purely from the logistics aspect - think about organising your own individual training camp - pay for you own, single bed room, pay for your own individual hire car, plan your own courses, put out your own flags... Silly isn't it

The Danes require their athletes to join forces.

For the All Blacks an individual's ability to work within the team dydnamic is of greater importance than their rugby skills - if you don't fit the team you don't make the All Blacks, no matter how good you are (Admittedly a team sport, but I think it is nevrtheless )significant.

[maprun]

One important element used to instill a team/squad ethos, is asking the team to decide on its own values. I recall the England 2003 Rugby Team decided how they wanted to act as group, so they "bought into" their team behaviour/ethos, rather than it being imposed on them. Likewise the Danish squad:

Started as a project in 2010. Value based. The athletes came up with the values themselves, BUT nobody talked about winning. Lindstrøm introduced the value of winning, and athletes accepted the value. The 4 values: “We are training to win, we live professionally, we make each other better, we are a team”

A case of treating people as adults and the group will hopefully impose its own shared expectations on each other.

[greywolf]

The distinction between team and squad is important, and in particular whether athletes can be selected for the national team whilst outside the national squad

Here's the Danish model.

The article, and the more in-depth write-up from the coaches conference don't seem to say exactly who was in the Danish squad last year although i'm assuming this page tells you who's in it now - there's at least a couple of the Danish 2015 WOC team who aren't there - not sure if this means the Danes will select athletes from outside the squad, but OTOH they may have left or been cut since August - does anyone know?

[Snail]

There may often be people who for various reasons (employment, location, personality,...) don't make a good fit with a national squad. If it is a personality issue then it may even be the same specific trait that drives that individual to outperform and achieve their goals. None of these should necessarily mean they are not available for selection to a national team. They may even have to work slightly harder to prove themselves, as being outside the squad may reduce knowledge of current form, reasons for underperformance through injuries etc.

But many (all?) elite international competitions are still effectively organised via national team managers, so at that level it isn't necessarily practical for an individual to travel / live away from the team, or have particularly idiosyncratic requirements - you have to be able to fit in. If the reason for being outside the squad is employment / location then it is probably not an issue, but if it is personality then it may be. Such an individual may require careful handling by team management - and may also have to accept team arrangements that are less than ideal for them personally.