Phillips Idowu is a useless ****

UK athletics fan, You must understand that tongue in cheek comments are not taken as such because you used them in a context previously to bring me down and suggest I was making an excuse for running poorly, so dont come on here making out you have a hard life etc. I reacted to your comments as they were meant to be read on this message board. Also the comments that you made and the nature of them particularly with the language that has been used suggest to me that you actually know very little. Life as an athlete for me because of my run of injuries has been an uphill battle despite this I am very lucky to be able to do what I do and I never take it for granted. Yet you come on here making rash comments about athletes when they have no idea the troubles, tears, heart aches in being held back from training to be the best they can be as they love what they do, only to be told they are crap by people like you. I have said my peice now and will hear no furhter from me. All I ask is that you have a bit of sensitivity when chatting on these boards hiding behind your little fake names, as athletes do read these things because they are extremly passionate about what they do, and are always looking to better themselves and read information.

Feris Bodwan wrote:

get real timmy wrote:

Tim.

Get real, being a full time athlete is a piece of piss.

The hard way would be to actually get a job and train. What kind of hard daily schedule do you have when it doesn't include a little nap in the afternoon.

Give us a break.

Fact of the matter is Tim you are blessed with a talent. Now use it and stop hiding behind the excuses of injury and illness. Are you telling me Jeremy Wariner doesn't get ill or injured??

Jeremy Wariner probs does have the occasional problem but you can be dead cert he has less injuries than the athletes that work under Tony Lester.

Including Tim himself.

No coincidence like I said. Ricky soos has been injured for 2 years since working with George Gandy at Loughborough.

Thats your so called English Institute of Sport Coaches for you.

But who am I to comment, guess i'm just a recreational athlete.

You still haven't answered my earlier question Tim!

There are going to be different explanations for each athlete on why so many are injured - some may not be looking after themselves while others may be unfortunate (biomechanics related injury, illness etc).

But the landscape of the sport in the UK and globally does not help.

Eg in 2002 Steinle ran 2.09.17 for 8th at London. Good run and 90sec faster than Eamonn Martin ran to win in 93.

What does he do next? He could settle for aiming for 2.09 again. But that wouldn’t take him anywhere, especially in 21st century marathon running. He thought it would take about 2.06 to move him to what was perceived as the next level. That’s what he went for and he got injured.

Hindsight is 20:20 but what should he, or athletes in his position do? The sport is truly global with the depth of talent at the top level greater than ever. The B Grand Prix circuit (and other races that used to act as steps on the ladder) have disappeared. The sport, like others, is moving towards fewer and fewer bigger and bigger events. Instead of progressing a step at a time many athletes are now looking at leaps being needed to make the next level. Eg where do you go to run a 13.10-13.20 5K?

Gone are the days when there would be several coaches who had squads of guys running from club level to international standard with most things in between. Those squads don’t exist so much any more, look at the rankings lists. That makes it harder for both the athlete and coach to see and plan a clearly defined progression to the next level. Those who have coached squads like that in the past now have to take account of the different landscape of the sport so can’t just do it in the same way as they did in the past when planning competition etc.

I interviewed Wilson Kipketer recently and he thinks unrealistic pressures to develop too quickly are what are killing young Western athletes. They have huge expectation on them and are expected to improve steeply all the time. He blamed the media and people within the sport (agents etc) who wish to attach themselves to the next big thing and have to make a song and dance about them to get them into races, get them in the papers and get them the money. He certainly knows what he is talking about.

I think financial pressure is another factor. Despite what people think the money is not great at anything but the very top level. In athletics terms a four year development plan may be ideal but is it financially viable? Do you risk being out of the job market and housing market for that long? Big sacrifice on what might be a long shot. Easy to see why people go all or bust (or decide to give it a year) even if it’s not the best thing to do in athletics terms.

Some coaches don’t seem to have such good rates of injury but it is a tough situation to address. The issues around preparing a runner to compete in Osaka in a major championship with a tough climate are pretty complex. We don’t have many athletes or coaches used to dealing with that as the depth of talent in the UK is pretty low. So what do you do? You could take athletes away from their old coaches and move them to coaches with the experience of this but who don’t know the athlete so well (Kipketer also spoke about how relocating is not always a good idea as you lose/have to change all your support structures). Or do you leave them with the existing coach?

Not sure why Tom Naylor (ika feris Bodwan) has such a problem with Tim? anyone shed some light on why tom feels the need to slag these runners off?

How can TB answer for other people?

He is not the cause of their problems.

Tim, if you're still around could you, or anyone else for that matter, give an insight into Colin Jackson's and Tony Lesters 400m training schedules?

Best of luck

Very good points. Especially on developing athletes too quickly.

On the last question, If that athlete is improving steadily season after season why change?? Especially if it is of international standard.

I also think the reason we don't have coaches experienced enough in dealing with the situation of injuries is because the coach education programme is poor. Having been on the courses and having coached for the last 5 years. You tend to find you are left to fend for yourself or end up having to pay huge sums of money through your own expences.

Why should volunteer coaches pay out huge sums of money to educate themselves if they are not going to get the support after??

Tim,

when I made the comment about athletes getting a virus and the rest of us getting a cold I added a smiley :) at the end. I have used this before to suggest I was making a joke - although of course humour is a devillishly difficult thing to get right on a message board.

I didn't say I have had a hard life - although I have had my fair share of problems to deal with. We all have our cross to bear.

I was brought up in a council state by a gambling father and an alcoholic mother. One of my brothers is a drug addict and has just been let out of prison. I left school with no qualifications but worked my way through the system and now to where I am now with a successful career but even then it wasn't all plain sailing - my wife and I were both made redundant when she was expecting our first child! But shit happens, and you have to deal with it.

And when I was running at my best I was not far off international level. I have trained with and competed against a number of international guys and count among my friends people who have won county titles, people that have won medals at the AAAs and people who have competed in major championships.

Going back a few years a friend of mine was in the shape of his life and hoping to crack 2.20 in the marathon. I was doing my long runs with him so I knew he was fit - his weekday training consisted of running to and from work. A week before London he tripped on a kerb, his ankle flared up and he could't run. He was distraught.

Life is tough sometimes.

and every now and I enjoy having a bit of a rant but in appreciation of you coming on here and posting your comments I shall no longer use this pseudonym and will revert to posting under my usual (but still false!) name.

Once more, I wish you good luck for 2008.

p.s. I still think idowu is a wally of the highest order and a serial under-achiever.

Tim, have you ever considered the possibility that all those injuries are caused by training too hard?

Just because you are a full time professional runner, it doesn't mean that you have to train full on all the time.

[quote]Andy Barber wrote:

I interviewed Wilson Kipketer recently and he thinks unrealistic pressures to develop too quickly are what are killing young Western athletes. They have huge expectation on them and are expected to improve steeply all the time. He blamed the media and people within the sport (agents etc) who wish to attach themselves to the next big thing and have to make a song and dance about them to get them into races, get them in the papers and get them the money. He certainly knows what he is talking about.

/quote]

That makes a lot of sense to me.

no more from mr tommy naylor (aka Feris Bowen) then? he also use to post under the name UK boy

so any other threads he slagged runners off - just go back with the search and see!

nice

wrong type of conditioning compared to the american set-up (pre-hab, etc)

attheraces wrote:

no more from mr tommy naylor (aka Feris Bowen) then? he also use to post under the name UK boy

so any other threads he slagged runners off - just go back with the search and see!

nice

Who the feck is Tommy Naylor?

And who the feck are you?

Comments from Andy Braber are spot on

I find it strange that 'elite athletes' feel the need to justify their failures on this site, I wont expect to see Alex Ferguson defending his time everytime they get a rollicking from the press.

Elite athletes should expect it as standard and maybe some of the athletes in question are not just physically weak thus injury prone, but also mental fragile...

Tony Lester's group are all always over trained.. yes he delivers sometimes but needs a large pool of athletes to get one or two running well.

As Andy Braber points out, it is very challenging for a western athlete to develop into a world class performer and the b grand prix circuit is non exsistent and recognised externally less than proxy road races won in sub national standard!

Maybe some guys should toughen up abit, get their attitude sorted out and focus on winning and not their horrible run of bad luck.....

Tim, i think you need to go back to the long socks, if i remember correctly you had them for 05 when you were droppin 44.x all over the place.