Category Archive: Rio Olympics

Paralympic Success: Why Some Countries are Stronger Than Others

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As Japan gears up for the 2020 Olympics, they take great comfort from the success of their athletes at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Japan finished sixth in the medals table with 41 total – the country’s best showing ever. But as the country prepares for the 2020 Paralympics, they were stunned that Japan could not garner a single gold medal at the Rio Paralympics, finishing 64th out of 76 in the total medal count.

It made me wonder, what are the factors that contribute to success at the Paralympics, at least in terms of medal haul. A quick analysis indicates that a robust economy, established leadership, focused funding, and strong societal commitment to fair and reasonable accessibility for the disabled.

Robust Economy: China, Great Britain, the US, and Australia were in the top five in the Rio Paralympics, which suggests that a success factor in the Paralympics is a strong economy. However, Japan as a case in point indicates that a strong economy is not the only factor.

Established Leadership: The Ukraine is not an economy nearly as strong or stable as the others in the top five. Their success, according to this BBC report, is because Ukraine has strong leadership, in this case, a person who designed and powerfully drove a national program that focused on the development of young people with disabilities.

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2016 Rio Paralympic medal table
Ukraine were 31 places below Team USA in the Olympics medal table, but one place above them at the Rio Paralympics. They are reaping the rewards of foundations set by Valeriy Sushkevych, founder and president of the Paralympic Committee of Ukraine, who helped develop a physical education and sport programme for young people with disabilities.

Focused Funding: Strong leadership needs access to funding. When BBC compared the success of China and the US in paralympic competition, they noted that China’s paralympic development programs have access to significant funds, while the US paralympics train under constant financial constraints. The USOC runs its funding on a corporate sponsorship model, and does not receive government funds. The Chinese model is entirely government supported. The way the funds are divvied up between athletes for the Olympics and the Paralympics differs greatly as well.

With money raised through sponsorship deals with major brands such as Coca-Cola, McDonalds and Visa, USOC hands out about $50m (£39m) a year to US athletes across different sports, with the Rio Paralympics team receiving about $4m (£3m). Meanwhile, the Chinese government is aiming to develop a £647bn sports industry by 2025 and in recent years has increased its investment in sport, including football, Olympics and Paralympics. As of 2016, China has trained more than 42,100 fitness instructors for the disabled and has built 225 provincial and 34 national specialised sports training centres. The China Disability Sports Training Centre in Beijing, opened in 2007, also provides state-of-the-art facilities for disabled athletes.

Strong Societal Commitment: Also with strong leadership may come a strong, broad-based commitment, not just by governments or organizations devoted to the development of sports and athletes, but also by society. When laws are enacted to grow awareness of and increase access for the disabled, then society becomes more open and supportive.

One can conclude that hosting the Paralympics acts like an accelerant for commitment to the disabled. Before Brazil, the previous four nations to host the Paralympics were Great Britain, China, Greece and Australia. Except for Greece, Great Britain, China and Australia were in the top five of the Rio Paralympics medals table.

The investment in Paralympic success was abundant in 2012 for TeamGB. The same was true for China in 2008. The assumption is that Japanese authorities will aim not only for success for Team Nippon in the Olympics but also the Paralympics. Clearly, hosting the Olympics and Paralympics is tremendous incentive to make significant investments. And with the country’s pride on the line, the investment will flow, perceptions will shift, rules and laws may change, and Japan, by 2020, may become one of the most inclusive nations in the world. My guess is that Japan will do very well in the Tokyo Paralympics as well.

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1964 Olympian Ollan Cassell Reports: Safe and Sound in Rio

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Ollan Cassell signing the 1964 Tokyo Olympics poster in Rio; from the collection of Ollan Cassell

The doomsayers had their say – the Rio Olympics, under the crushing weight of the poor economy, scandals, environmental and health scares, worries of security, would fail.

Ollan Cassell has seen it all. As a member of the 4X400 US men’s track relay team at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, as well as in his role as the executive director of the Amateur Athletic Union, the American governing body for 17 sports in his time, Cassell has been to every Olympics since 1964, excepting the Athens Olympics in 2004.

So when he arrived in Rio, he read all the stories about the problems. He certainly noticed the empty stands. And he put up with the traffic snarls that paralyzed the city during the Games. But Cassell knew that once the Games started, the problems would fade to the background.

The org committee was broke, the country is in a mess. They threw their president out. They didn’t have the finances to get things done. But like all the other Olympics, for the athletes with medals on the line, they‘re ready to compete. Regardless of what the situation is, once the Olympics roll around the athletes are ready. The athletes are focused on competing and wining regardless of what’s going on. When the lights go on, and the gun goes off, the press writes about how great the games are.

And what was the most amazing event Cassell witnessed? “The most spectacular event I saw in Brazil was that 400 meter world record (set by Wayde van Niekerk). I couldn’t imagine anyone could go 43.3 seconds. It’s like going 21.5 for two 200s!”

There were of course fears of security. Cassell was in Mexico City when hundreds were killed as government troops thwarted an anti-government protest prior to the start of the 1968 Olympics. Cassell was in Munich when Palestinian terrorists murdered 11 Israeli Olympians and coaches in 1972. But Cassell felt safe in Rio de Janeiro. Accompanied by his daughter, Cassell played tourist and was comforted by the presence of security.

 

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Ollan Cassell at Christ the Redeemer; from the collection of Ollan Cassell

 

As was true with the world cup in Brazil, there were about 75000 to 80000 soldiers. I felt safe. No one in my group had been robbed or held up. The military was patrolling all the time. When you went out into the streets, sightseeing, you would see the military trucks with open beds and machines guns driving through the area. It was like an armed camp, but you felt safe. They had barriers in the sightseeing areas, big steel barriers the kind police use when they want to direct car and foot traffic into certain area. They were imposing. But that’s been true at all the Games. In London, they had barriers to make sure you went where they wanted you to go.

As for the environmental or health issues, to Cassell, it wasn’t an issue. “I didn’t hear of anyone getting sick because of the water. And I saw only one mosquito, which my granddaughter killed.”

But perhaps, one of the most satisfying parts of an Olympian’s life is to re-connect with the Olympian fraternity.

It’s a special feeling – being an Olympian. There are so few of us compared to the population of the world. In Olympic Villages there are about 10,000 Olympians, which is a select group. In the United States, there are about 5,000 living Olympians, with quite a few in their 90s. So it’s wonderful to see old friends and Olympians at these events.

To read about Ollan Cassell and the history of international sports from the 1960s to the 1990s, read his absorbing book, Inside the Five Ring Circus: Changing Global Sports and the Modern Olympics.

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The Indomitable Tatyana McFadden: From Walking on her Hands to Walking on Top of the World

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Tatyana McFadden in Rio

She was born in cash-strapped Russia just before the fall of the Soviet Union with spina bifida, a situation that in Tatyana McFadden’s case left her paralyzed from the waist down in a broken-down institution in Leningrad known as “Orphanage 9.” Without funds for a wheelchair, Tatyana got around walking on her hands.

As fate would have it, her eyes locked with a visitor from America, Deborah McFadden, who in 1995 was visiting in her capacity as Commissioner of Disabilities for the US Health Department. Deborah and her partner decided to adopt Tatyana and brought her to Baltimore, Maryland, where Tatyana got the medical care and the family support she was not fated to receive in her home country.

And thanks to the opportunities and clearly her indomitable drive, Tatyana would go on to become one of the most successful athletes in the world. Over a span of four Paralympics since 2004 in Athens, Tatyana has garnered 16 medals for TeamUSA, including 7 golds, in wheelchair racing. Not only that, she has shown incredible range, winning over the entire spectrum of track distance. At the Rio Paralympics, she took silver in the 100 meter sprint and silver in the 42.2 kilometer marathon, as well as gold medals in between in the 400 meters, 800 meters, 1500 meters and 5000 meters.

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Tatyana with her biological mother_BBC

 

 

Tatyana has enormous capacity not only to train and triumph, but to forgive. She set her sites on returning to her homeland and competing at the Winter Paralympics in Sochi in a completely different sport – Nordic skiing. Part of her motivation to learn a new sport was to see her biological mother, Nina Pilevikova. In front of her adopted and biological mothers, Tatyana incredibly took silver in 1K sprint for those who skied while sitting. Her capacity for triumph was matched by her capacity to empathize, as she related to the BBC in Sochi.

“It is of course hard as a mother. You carry a child for nine months, but if you think about it, knowing you can’t take care of your child, what do you do? Do you selfishly keep it, knowing you can’t have the medical….I needed a lot of medical treatment. And I needed attention quickly. That’s the toughest decision she has to make.”

Said her biological mother, “I am very proud of Tatyana. I am very happy to be here with all our family. I think people look at Tatyana and they have hope.”

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In Sochi

Tatyana, like many Paralympians, do not aim to be inspirations. In fact, some often feel patronized by the label. Tatyana had to fend for herself in the orphanage and was brought up by parents who value perseverance in the face of difficulty and self-sufficiency. Her adopted mother, Deborah, understands that as she herself was also confined to a wheelchair for years due to a condition called Guillain-Barre Syndrome.

Here’s Tatyana in her own words, highlighted in “The Mighty“, a site devoted to telling the stories of people with disabilities, diseases and mental illness.

People have commented that they are “inspired” by my story. But these compliments, made with the best intentions, can sometimes miss the point. “Inspired” often means they feel sorry for my condition and what I went through in my early life, and feel they should count their own blessings for what they have. But what they are missing is that I am who I am today not in spite of my disabilities, but because of them.

All of us competing in the Olympics and Paralympics have had our own unique challenges, our own strengths and talents that we have nurtured, and our own weaknesses and disabilities that we have overcome. The games in Rio are a test of our ability to push physical and mental limitations, and a testament to humanity’s indomitable spirit to adapt and excel.

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Out of the Ultimately Successful Rio Paralympics Emerges a Hometown Hero and Legend, Daniel Dias

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Daniel Dias winning 100-meter freestyle at the 2016 Rio Paralympics

Empty stands are a common photo-op at all Olympic Games, but they were particularly obvious at the Rio Olympics. A debilitating economy and high ticket prices made sure of that.

But the Rio Paralympics, following only a little over two weeks after the Rio Olympics, was under even greater threat due to the economic hardship of Brazil: funds to support the travel of athletes to Brazil from developing economies were delayed, and only 12% of tickets to all Paralympic events were sold. The organizers feared empty venues and death by embarrassment.

According to the Economist, the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes, borrowed funds from state-run companies to ensure all Paralympians were at the Games as planned, while cutting funds in other areas. He also took down big screens around Rio to encourage Brazilians to attend. To make it easier, organizers slashed the price of tickets, making entry as low as USD3, and made strong appeals to the public to pack the venues and cheer.

It worked. As the Guardian wrote, ticket sales for the Rio Paralympics had topped 2 million at the time of the article on September 10. in fact, that day welcomed attendance of 167,675, which was better than the best day at the Rio Olympics, by about 10,000. At the time of that writing, total attendance was approaching 2.4 million, which would make it the second-most attended Paralympics after the London Paralympics in 2012.

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In those jam-packed venues, filled with the enthusiastic and raucous locals cheering on Team Brazil, emerged a star among stars. The day before the end of the Paralympics, a 28-year-old swimmer from Sao Paulo won his fourth gold medal in the 100-meter freestyle. Over the span of a 10-year career, Daniel Dias, who was born with malformed arms and legs, has won 24 medals in the Paralympics, including 14 gold medals.

Here’s how the Rio2016.com site put it.

Dias is a national hero, Brazil’s very own Michael Phelps and by the noise generated by the crowd inside the venue you could feel the weight of the nation’s hope on his shoulders. This would be pressure for some, but not Dias. “I try to enjoy everything. I feel it’s positive pressure and a great honour to represent this country with everybody watching on TV. I’m trying to do my best in the pool,” he said.

And how loud were the cheers for hometown hero, Daniel Dias, in his 100-meter freestyle final? Watch the clip below and listen to the roar of the crowd.

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Paralympian Visually Impaired Runners Ran Faster Than Olympian Runners in the 1,500: How is that Possible?

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Abdullatif Baka of Algeria
Imagine wearing a pair of your friend’s eyeglasses, you know, the ones that look as thick as the bottom of a coca cola bottle. When you put them on, you can make out shapes and sizes, but you quickly remove them because your new view of the world is just too big a shock to handle.

Now imagine wearing those glasses and racing around a track in one of the most important events in your life.

Paralympians are amazing. And in the 1500 meter track finals at the 2016 Rio Paralympics, an amazing fact blew up the internet. Four runners whose visual acuity allows them to see the world in fuzzy shapes and colors, completed the race in 3 minutes and 49.59 seconds or faster. Yes, that is a faster time than the gold medal time in the 1500 meter track finals of the 2016 Rio Olympics.

In other words, the fourth placed finisher, Paralympian Fouad Baka of Algeria, had a faster time than Olympian Matthew Centrowitz of the US, who completed his run in 3 minutes and 50 seconds. Fouad’s brother, Abdellatif Baka took gold in the 1500 meter Paralympic finals in 3 minutes and 48.29 seconds.

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This is close to how it looks for these Paralympians.
So the world asked, how could the very best, fully sighted Olympians in the 1500 meters get out-timed by runners who have the equivalent of Vaseline smeared over their eyes? This is where the comments section of this Huffington Post article proved interesting and insightful.

Apparently, world-class runners in the 1500 can easily run faster times. In fact, if you look at the heats and semifinals, the winners finished in times of 3 minutes 38 or 39 seconds. Centrowitz finished 5th in his first heat with a time of 3:39:31 seconds, significantly faster than his gold-medal winning performance.

Additionally, according to those who have experience in the 1500 race, we very rarely see a world-class runner run full-blast throughout a competition, particularly in the finals. The 1500 is considered a highly tactical race, where the objective is not to run the fastest time, but to be first at the finish.

OK, that sounds fairly common sensical. But there appears to be a strong perception that running in the trail of one’s rivals, or drafting, reduces the air resistance significantly enough to make a difference, either physically or psychologically for a runner. Thus, tactically, the best runners avoid being the front runner for most of the race, which would slow down the pace relative to the heats. And when they see their opportunity, they sprint to the finish and hope they have more gas in the tank than the others.

Perhaps another way to think about it…. Imagine the Paralympians and Olympians competing in the same race. The Paralympians would set a very fast pace, and the Olympians would draft behind the front runners, who are likely running at full capacity. The Olympians, who can easily keep up, would have far more in the tank to kick into a higher gear, and likely leave the Paralympians behind.

Is that actually the case? Would anyone be willing to test that theory?

Who cares. Let’s go back to the original thought. These Paralympians are amazing!

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Paralympics Table Tennis Player Ibrahim Hamadtou: “Nothing is Impossible”

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Ibrahim Hamadtou at the Rio Paralympics.

The Paralympics are a revelation, an everyday reminder that our perceptions about what we can all physically accomplish is likely way below reality. Sometimes these reminders are so brash, they exceed our limited levels of experience and amaze us.

A case in point is Ibrahim Hamadtou of Egypt. When he was 10, he lost his arms in a train accident. Today, the 43-year-old table tennis player has astounded spectators at the Rio Paralympics, as well as new fans on the internet. In table tennis, the general classifications are for those who need to play in a sitting position, and those who can play in a standing position. Hamadtou can stand, but different from a majority of this opponents, he has no hands with which to hold the racquet.

Instead, he holds the ping pong paddle in his mouth, and adjusts his body, neck and head so quickly and gracefully that he can return a majority of the shots that come his way. He qualified for these Paralympics by finishing second in the 2016 African Championships. In his first Paralympics, he played two games, lost them both, and did not medal. But his skill in performing at the level he does without both arms is astounding.

His serve requires the use of his shoeless foot, where he grabs the ball from the floor, flips it up in the air, and sends the ball across the net with the table tennis raquet gripped tightly between his teeth. There are no coaches that teach this style. There are no YouTube videos he could consult. Although now there are, and they are videos of Hamadtou.

“I want to tell everybody that nothing is impossible, and everybody should work hard for what you love and what you think is good for yourself,” Hamadtou told the Paralympics website before the games began. “The disability is not in arms or legs, the disability is to not persevere in whatever you would like to do.”

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Kaori Icho: The Best Ever Female Wrestler Period

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When you win 189 matches in a row, mathematically, the odds against you increase. So it was on that cold Siberian day in Krasnoyarsk, Russia, that Kaori Icho, the legendary women’s wrestler from Japan, lost. Falling to a Mongolian student named Orkhon Purevdorj 10 years younger, the 31-year-old Icho experienced the end to an undefeated streak that lasted 13 years, 9 World championships and 3 Olympic championships.

“There’s enough time to put things right,” said Japan national team director Kazuhito Sakae. “I’m relieved it wasn’t the Olympics. I believe she can win her fourth-straight Olympic title.”

Icho rewarded Sakae’s belief and resumed her winning ways, culminating in four straight victories in Rio. She earned that last victory, coming from behind in the remaining seconds in her bout with Russian Valeria Koblova. And as a result, Icho secured gold in her fourth consecutive Olympiad. No other woman in any individual sport has done that.

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In fact, Icho has been reigning Olympic champion in wrestling since the women’s wrestling category was established at the 2004 Athens Olympics. You could say, she is the face of women’s wrestling, although she is less known than her teammate, Saori Yoshida, who like Icho, went into Rio with hopes of claiming a fourth championship in a row. But it was Icho alone who emerged from the Games with a perfect record intact.

The Japanese government announced it will award Icho from Aomori Japan the People’s Honor Award, the 24th awardee of this particular honor since the government established it in 1977. The first to win it was Sadaharu Oh of the Yomiuri Giants, the man who ended his career hitting more home runs than Henry Aaron. Icho found her glory closer to the ground. Like the gold medal, once in her grasp, it’s very hard to get her to let go.

Here is video of Icho’s come-from-behind victory taken by ring-side Japanese, along with their exciting chants and cheers.

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The Fantastic Jefinho: The Blind Visionary of Five-Aside Football

 

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Jefinho celebrates his equalising goal against China (Photo: Marcio Rodrigues/MPIX/CPB)

Neymar delivered for Brazil at the 2016 Olympic Games. Now it’s time for “Paralympic Pele”.

That moniker feels a bit patronizing…until you see Brazil football sensation, Jeferson da Conceicao Goncalve, aka Jefinho, weave through a crowd with the ball in total control before blasting it by the goal keeper. It’s amazing to watch under any circumstances, but when you realize that the football players on the pitch are blind, you realize you’re watching something outer worldly.jefinho-portrait

If not for Jefinho, Brazil would not have made it to the finals against Iran in five-aside football at the 2016 Rio Paralympics. Brazil won 1-0, to take gold for their fourth straight Paralympics since the sports debut at the 2004 Athens Games.

“I always thought about this moment: listening to our national anthem in a packed stadium at home with a Paralympic gold medal around my neck,” he said in this article from paralympic.org. “We are used to winning, but doing it in our country is different and beautiful.”

In the semi-finals against China, with Brazil behind 1-0, Jefinho took control and scored two spectacular goals. Imagine playing five-on-five soccer with blindfolds on. You can hear the sound of the ball as they are designed with small objects inside that rattle around and indicate audibly where the ball is for the players. They can hear the directions of their coach and other players, as well as their goal keeper, who under the rules, can be fully sighted.

That’s why it’s so important for the spectators to keep it quiet so that the players can perform. And yet, this is Brazil, where they like to get loud, and it’s soccer, which is religion in Brazil.

“It’s so difficult. We’re trying but we really want to shout,” said Sonia Lima, in this Reuters article. “When they get near the goal I just want to scream: ‘Take a shot dammit.'”

Fortunately, Jefinho did. Watch the video below in amazement!

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Team GB’s Brownlee Brothers: Embodying the Traits of Top-Notch Triathletes

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Jonny and Alistair Brownlee on their way to silver and gold at the Rio Olympics.

I have friends who participate in triathlons and ironman competitions, grueling three-stage events of swimming, cycling and running so alien to the ways in which I can or desire to spend my free time, that I can only silently wonder – Are these guys from a different planet?

Alas, triathletes are earthlings like you and me. They are just far more focused, obsessive, competitive and determined about swimming, cycling and running than I am. When I learned that Alistair and Jonathan (Jonny) Brownlee, two brothers from Yorkshire, England, won gold and silver respectively in the triathlon at the 2016 Rio Olympics, I took notice, wondering if the fact that they were brothers helped them to the podium. In fact, this is the second Olympics in a row that the Brownlee Brothers made it to the podium, with Alistair winning gold and Jonny bronze in the London Games.

I learned they are indeed different, not so much that they diverge from homo sapien anatomy and psychology, but that they differ from me by significant degrees. I came across this site entitled “11 Traits of Top-Notch Triathletes“, which showed me that while I may be a tad measure better than some on these traits, I am leagues behind triathletes in all of them.

  1. We can deftly balance a jam-packed schedule.
  2. We are maxed out on self-discipline.
  3. We’re laser-focused about our goals.
  4. We take goals one step further.
  5. Pain management is fun for us.
  6. We welcome obstacles, adversity and pressure.
  7. We’re in love with our sport.
  8. We are persistent and determined (with a dash of stubbornness.)
  9. We are competitive, both with ourselves and others.
  10. We love to share our knowledge and convert our friends.
  11. We know that it takes one to know one.

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Here are quotes from the Brownlee brothers, relevant to some of those traits:

We are maxed out on self-discipline.: “…training is what I love. Those sessions have been harder than races: a few times a week absolutely killing myself, going to bed not being able to sleep because my legs hurt so much, getting up in the morning and not being able to walk because my ankles were so stiff. It’s been like that for the last six months with a few bumps and injuries along the way. That’s all of it, but the training is what I love doing. Killing myself to finish a session.” Alistair (ESPN)

We’re laser-focused about our goals.: “I don’t like this attitude of, ‘I had a bad race but it’s a learning experience.’ That’s a very convenient excuse for a lot of people, why it’s a good reason to have bad performances when it’s not.” Alistair (BBC)

We take goals one step further.: “I thought I’d be an awful injured athlete. I thought it would drive me crazy not being able to do anything, but I’m actually very good at changing my goal to a different one. Instead of focusing my training, I was trying to be the best kind of injured athlete I could possibly be. That involved being the best use of crutches in the world – my left leg didn’t touch the ground for four weeks. Straight away, I got on the phone to the nutritionist to ask how I could heal it. What were the best possible things I could eat? I got told all the usual – protein shakes, eat lots of cherries, that kind of thing. I made myself the best sort of nutrition plan in the world. I don’t think I could have done a better job of giving it the best possible healing.” Jonny (BBC)

Pain management is fun for us.: “It would seem quite strange to a lot of people, that you could actually enjoy physically hurting yourself. It doesn’t seem to make sense. I don’t know where it comes from. I think in some ways that it’s not quite escapism, but everyone has a state of mind, or something that they enjoy doing or something that takes them away from everyone else, and maybe that’s been it for me.” Alistair (BBC)

We welcome obstacles, adversity and pressure.: “I’ve had other days where I’ve thought ‘Yeah, I could have done things a lot better there. I didn’t do that well’. And then I’ve had races where I’ve gone into it thinking ‘I’m going to really struggle to win this, I’m only going to win this either by sheer guts or by being a bit clever about it’, and I’ve pulled it off. They’re very, very satisfying races.” Alistair (BBC)

We are competitive, both with ourselves and others.: “We’ve been doing races that are low key and supposed to be fun. In 2012, we raced the Yorkshire cross country championships, and although we were first and second, we’d had a busy week and should just have been running together. Instead, with a kilometre to go, we were absolutely maxing out. It was a couple of weeks later that Alistair tore his Achilles. That race probably went a long way to doing that. If both of us had backed off for the last 10-15 seconds, which we could have easily done, then we would have been fine. We should really have thought, ‘It’s January 2012, the Olympics are eight months away, why are we racing each other?'” Jonny (BBC)

So, is there any advantage to the Brownlee’s being brothers? The answer, as Alistair related in this Yorkshire Post article, is yes.

We both know how important we have been, pushing each other on over the years. From everything, to just motivation to get out of the door in the morning – if you know your little brother is going to go training you are going to go training, too – to being able to travel the world together. That has been really important over the years. Over the last three months we have done almost every session together, even the very hard sessions where we are pushing each other as hard as we can. There is no-one else in the world that can do that with each other, but we have done that time and time again, four or five times a week in the last three months, and that has been absolutely crucial.

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Wayde van Niekerk and the 74-Year-Old Grandmother: Another Stereotyped Smashed

Ans Botha, coach for South African sprinter Wayde van Niekerk, talks to reporters during media availability at the Olympic Village in Rio de Janeiro.
Ans Botha, coach for South African sprinter Wayde van Niekerk, talks to reporters during media availability at the Olympic Village in Rio de Janeiro, Aug. 15, 2016. Niekerk won the gold medal in the 400-meter final with a world record of 43.03 (Jeffrey Furticella/The New York Times)

In the world of leadership development, finding the right executive coach is often a matter of chemistry. We often introduce a coachee to two, sometimes three prospective coaches with the hope that one of them will click with the client. So much of a good coaching engagement is the willingness of the coachee to be vulnerable, to allow him or herself to open up and trust the coach. The greater the openness and trust, the greater the commitment of the coachee to change.

The same is likely true in the world of high-performance sports. Not every coach is right for every athlete. While Bobby Valentine‘s cerebral, in-your-face managerial style was perfect for the World Series bound 2000 New Mets, it was awful for the 2012 Boston Red Sox. While Soichi Sakamoto‘s my-way-or-the-highway approach to coaching championship swimmers was perfect for two-time gold medal-winning freestyle swimmer, Bill Smith, in the 1930s and 1940s, it was anathema to fellow Hawaiian swim star Halo Hirose.

When Wayde Van Niekerk of South Africa blew away Michael Johnson’s 19-year-old world record time in the 400-meter sprint at the 2016 Rio Olympics, almost everyone was surprised to learn that his coach was a 74-year-old woman whose white-haired, grandmotherly appearance fooled security at the Olympic Stadium. They would not let the woman see her prodigy, Van Niekerk. After being reassured profusely by fellow South Afrikaner athletes that Anna Sofia Botha was indeed the coach of Rio’s newest star, the coach finally got to see her coachee.

As she explained in this New York Times article, “we just hugged each other. It wasn’t necessary to say anything. We knew in our hearts and in our minds what we thought and what we had achieved.”

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Van Niekerk met Botha in 2012, when he enrolled at the University of the Free State, where Botha was the track coach. Even though she seemed to appear out of nowhere, Botha has actually been coaching track for nearly half a century, after competing in track herself. So when she saw this raw talent come to her, and saw a sprinter prone to leg injuries, she recommended that van Niekerk switch from the 200 meters, to the 400 meters, under the assumption that the longer distance would place less stress on his hamstrings.

“I have such a big responsibility to get this athlete to develop to his full potential, and also the responsibility for myself to try to do my very best not to do something wrong which can make or break him,” Botha told the Sunday Times (cited in this Deadspin article.) “The main thing is we listened to what his body said to us. If the body said stop, we stopped, or went a little softer.”

“She’s an amazing woman,” van Niekerk said in this article in The Guardian. “She has played a huge role in who I am today and kept me very disciplined and very focused on the role and who I need to be.” Clearly Niekerk needed someone who could bring the tough love, and Botha confirmed that in the same article.

“I dearly love all my athletes but it’s about being strict … We can laugh, but when we have to work hard, we work hard.”

World-class athletes who self-coach, like javelin champion Julius Yego, are few and far between. The coach can sometimes have a huge impact. Who is the right coach? Well, if you’re serious, you probably should not settle for the first one to come along. The coach right for you is out there. You’ll know it when you meet her.

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