Vienna International: Coaching long & triple for England

It was an honour to be called up to coach for England (long and triple jump) at the early season Vienna international meeting at the end of Jan.

This was the second time that I have coached for England, the first being on home soil at the Loughborough International, the season before last. Who'd have thought that I'd, sort-of, be an international again,  twenty years after pulling on my last England vest in an international in Ukraine against the Ukraine. 

Coaching athletes you are not familiar with is not an easy task and really we're only, as team coaches supposed to offer basic advice, such as position on the board. We also have to ensure that the athletes get to their events on time and have everything they need. I'll not write too much about what directly happened as I pulled together a video on my experiences - which you can see below. Also there's. full write up of all the happenings across all events on the England website - click here to read that.

It was a great experience coaching from the sidelines as ever and the athletes performed well, albeit some with some early season cobwebs.

Social media
When I was an athlete you would hardly know your teammates let alone your team coaches and this is one area where social media can be beneficial. Through Instagram in particular I was familiar with at least two of the jumpers I would be working with, so I was able to take a look at their jumping styles and even communicate with them prior to the event. And rather scarily, but in a good way (if that's possible) I was recognised from my youtube channel by two Austrian jumpers. The power of the internet eh?

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