Dave Peel

[eddie]

i'm interested to see that no one has commented on the plight of our national team coach.

are there any well heeled italian coaches out there? (that was joke not a request)

[greywolf]

does impending fatherhood qualify as "plight"?

[eddie]

no the plight meaning that the position of national team coach will soon be vacant.

there seem to be no obvious candidates to take over.

[DIDSCO]

I agree with Eddie that there are very few obvious contenders

but I would recommend

Heather Munro - I think she'd do an excellent job coaching both mens / womens, probably the most experienced/respected British orienteer living in Britain.

Ewan McCarthy - Young but experienced, great psychology, loves the big events, would give the job 100% and bring british orienteering into the 21st century.

Apart from that I'd look to overseas contenders......

[graeme]

Do either have any coaching qualifications?

Does it matter?

From the outside, it always seemed to me that Peel wasn't really good enough to make the team, but then every high-pressure selection race he pulled out the goods. In this sense, one has to rate him as one of our best ever "performers", and its no surprise he made a great coach, and his departure a great loss.

[Tatty]

Kitch is doing a fantastic job up in Edinburgh

[ruth]

i reckon looking abroad would be really good for british orienteering. some new perspectives and ideas and a fresh way of thinking ...much like gareth candy taking on the junior job, which seems to have worked really well.

[RS]

Goran did a pretty good job from what I remember

[JEP]

Goran was a fantastic motivator and communicator. This is the most essential skill/quality of a top coach. He raised GB Orienteering to a new level and made the athletes believe they were as good as the Scandinavians. He was not so good at writing strategies and admin but he delegated that and pulled in some other experts.

Goran's other great attribute was that he had no hang ups about athletes or baggage from British Orienteering.

Find a motivator and communicator with the understanding of elite sport and orienteering at top level and you have a head coach. Not too many of those around.

[harry]

Goran was also selected as the best candidate from a number of applicants who went through an interview process.
Hopefully they will do a similar thing this time and hopefully some good candidates will want to work with the British team! Obviously I'd like to see someone who believes in not only the Men but also the Women's team and helps us turn all those WUOC relay medals (gold, silver, gold from '02, '04 and '06) into WOC ones!
Look at the Aussie girls this WOC, 100% qualification record in all disciplines and two in the top 17 in the middle distance, we should be that good and aiming higher (as they are).

[harry]

ps i know wuoc is a lesser competition but if you look at the teams we beat to those medals you've got athletes like Lea muller, Seline Stadler, Katri Kerkola (now Lindquist), Ines Brodmann, the Brozkova sisters. Now all regulars in the Swiss, Finnish & Czech senior teams.
So the British Women's team has potential too!Especially with juniors like Hollie Orr, Julia Blomquist and Mairead Rocke coming up through the ranks. & the under 25 section looks pretty healthy too with Tessa Hill, Laura Daniel, Mhairi Mackenzie, Heather Gardener, Lizzie Adams.

[Gross]

Goran was selected as the Performance Director & had control of all things elite orienteering including targets etc etc. One of these targets agreed with the funding bodies was medals in the Relays in Switzerland... that happened (although Goran had left by then it was still his legacy). Many of the trainings at camps etc were focussed on relay performance.

Goran built up a strong team of coaches & others to support the athletes. When he became ill he moved sideways & became Head Coach & Derek Allison took on the Performance Directors role and subsquently appointed first Jon Musgrave and then Dave Peel as GBR Head Coach...

During Goran's time his teams & athletes produced a remarkable set of results.... Women were 3rd in EOC Relays, Heather got her first medals, the men won the Nordic Relays & 3rd in World Cups. Jamie got his first WC win.... and, of course, Yvette got GBR 1st WOC Gold.

I remember sitting at a training in Portugal with Goran & we had a couple of juniors with us.... he said that one of them (Rachel Elder) would be a regular GBR WOC competitor in future.... too true:)

It was a great pleasure working with Goran where we both became known as the 'room mates from hell'

[Lard]

I remember sitting at a training in Portugal with Goran & we had a couple of juniors with us.... he said that one of them (Rachel Elder) would be a regular GBR WOC competitor in future.... too true:)

Juniors on Senior camps? Forward-thinking!

[DIDSCO]

Leading on from Harry's comment about more focus on the women:

After watching the middle final live on TV yesterday it gave me an incredible clear insight into the differences between male and female orienteering at international level.
While the men's race was a great advert for the sport, the women's was embarassing to watch. The women's number of mistakes was unbelievable, and their flow through the terrain and controls was poor. The commentators were finding it hard to make the womens race seem like a World Champs when the camera continually zoomed in on the girls making mistakes or just standing still in the forest. Almost the only exception to this was Minna Kauppi, who could be compared favourably to the men.

So this set me thinking again It should be significantly easier to produce top class females, than males, as the competition at the top is no where near as high, as was quite clearly shown yesterday on TV. So if Britain wants medals this has got to be the way to go. We should start focusing our resources on the British women, giving them the best coaching and training opportunities available. I reckon with a specially focused group of say our best 15-20 girls - seniors + juniors, where they get good physical training advice, high level of technical coaching, sport psych, and top class training opportunities regularly with perhaps 2 core bases - one in Edinburgh and one in England (Sheffield?) where 3 or 4 or more weekly o-sessions are organised for them, within 2 years we'd be regularly in the top 10 in all the international events.
Often the guys have been prioritised in the past maybe it's time the girls got their chance?

[greywolf]

While the men's race was a great advert for the sport, the women's was embarassing to watch. The women's number of mistakes was unbelievable, and their flow through the terrain and controls was poor.... ....the competition at the top is no where near as high

Hmm, was it really that different? Lies, damned lies and stats, but if you ignore the winners for a moment - in the mens, 10th place was 2min 23 behind second, in the womens, 10th was 2min 38 behind 2nd ... , and I suspect a TV camera following (EOC champion?) Dmitry Tsevtkov would have been quite entertaining.....

A smaller pool of women competitors means (probably) less strength in depth, and of course there a general effect of women running slower than men - but you seem to be suggesting that they're just more crap as well....

As far as the future goes, there's certainly at least half a dozen juniors around, boys and girls, (decided against naming names, don't think thats appropriate) who might make it, and i hope they all get sufficient support / coaching etc. - but fundamentally the limiting factor will be the quantity and quality of that small fraction of the population who ever try the sport.

Now if you really want to "produce" top class orienteers, you should be planning on kidnapping the top 20 in the National Schools Cross-Country, and spiriting them away to a secluded training camp (no boys, bling or bacardi breezers) in the middle of Sweden for a couple of years...