30.07.2009

McLellan's mastermind gears up for Berlin

Sharon Hannan, coach of Olympic silver medallist Sally McLellan, writes exclusively from Europe for the Athletics Australia website in the countdown to Berlin.

G’day from London on July 25, 2009. I hope you’re enjoying catching up with news from me and news about the Aussie athletes on the Athletics Australia website.

Going to Cologne for a whole week was, in the end, a Godsend. Sally put in some really tough sessions (a couple of the 400m/800m runners now know that sprinters vomit as well!) and caught up with some good quality strength work. It’s the gym sessions that suffer most whilst travelling.

Penny Gillies and I went to the Cologne Zoo (still trying to find time to get photos up on Facebook) and also to the Cologne Olympic Museum. The Chocolate Museum was right beside it, but it was a real shame that we didn’t have time. Our Australian 'family' grew to 14 in Cologne and the mood is good. People to train with, people to shop with and, for some, people to sing with.

We have an extra member of our 'Team Sal' now; Jen Manning from the Queensland Academy of Sport flew into London on Thursday. Jen is our biomechanist and has done a tremendous amount of work with Sally and I over the past four years, particularly on starts and race analysis.  She’s here to film Sal’s races and then provide race data and analysis.  

Last year, after Beijing, we were asked by both QAS and Athletics Australia what they could do to help us maintain world ranking performances. Sally asked for an ice bath, which QAS duly delivered to the track and which has been a source of popularity in summer and a source of dread in winter. I asked for data and analysis on European races.

Two Australian and Oceania records were set last year and everything is now happening way too fast for me to determine whether, in races, she is improving her run time or her flight time (the time in the air over the hurdle). The TV footage available from Eurosport doesn’t have enough details of Sally in particular (take-off foot and landing foot) to give us footage to analyse, so we now have Jen with us for London, Monaco and Stockholm.

Jen experienced the worst of international travel to get here - a four-hour delay out of Brisbane, her Singapore to London flight was diverted through Frankfurt, staff in Frankfurt suggested NO onward flights would be organised at all, a 90 pound taxi trip to the hotel when ALL searches on the internet indicated it would be 50 and last but not least, NO BAGGAGE! It was to be a 30-hour wait with some wrenching of the hands before I knew we had cameras for the week. Of course, Jen was worried about having clothes as well.

We came to London from Cologne on Thursday. There’s quite a few Aussies here. On our flight over from Cologne, we had four of the five Boyds, Paul Burgess, Sean Wroe, Jeremy Roff, Ken Green, Scott Martin, Kim Mickle and her coach Grant Ward. The athletes are spread across three hotels and Jen, Grant and I are staying not too far away in another hotel. We have a car and a GPS and still we take wrong turns! Navigator’s fault (Grant), not mine.

Scotty, Jeff Riseley and Tamsyn Lewis competed yesterday and lots of Aussies compete today. Weather report from yesterday – rain in the morning clearing, windy (head) – cold all day and night.

This morning we woke up and the sun was shining. Still a bit windy and the wind is cold, but out of the wind is warm. Sal races in four hours, at 12.41am Sunday morning your time, so hopefully the wind will settle and the sun will stay out. The stadium is jam-packed and the crowd goes absolutely ape when Asafa or Usain walks out of the call room onto the track. There seem to be Jamaican flags and shirts everywhere and they are very vocal in their support of the Jamaicans and of the British as well.

Will write more tonight when I get back from the track. We drive to the athlete hotel and then take the athlete bus to and from the stadium, because we would NEVER get a carpark anywhere close...

Well, it was a good night for 'Team Sal' with a 12.65 win into a headwind of -0.7. She started with her trademark lightning speed and held them out easily to the seventh. Lolo started closing the gap off the eighth and Perdita started to fly through on the outside at the ninth. Sal won by one hundredth over Perdita Felicien (2003 world champion) and Lolo.

After the race we went back on the bus and stopped in at the Hilton to have a quick drink with other coaches. An American guy who coaches Carmelita Jeter (feel VERY rude for not asking his name) stopped me and said he’d been watching me for a few years with Sal, and told me I was doing a good job! I was thinking today, how often do we tell someone they’re doing a good job? Probably not enough. I was really quite chuffed!

We were able to get a coach’s accreditation for Jen and she also bought an actual ticket to the event, to give herself the best chance of getting a good spot for filming. She was also able to get into the main straight seating and fairly high up, so got some very good footage and we now have analysis.  

I have been asking Sal to think about accelerating from H4 to H5 and then H5 to H6. The data showed her fastest segment as H5 to H6, so that’s very pleasing. Interesting to also note, that of the historical race data we have (fastest race 12.71), her last three rhythmic units tonight (take-off at one hurdle to take-off at the next hurdle) are the fastest we have recorded. Still, there’s room for improvement.

In our post-Olympics debrief last year, I suggested that I should have kept speed endurance work up to Sal for a little longer leading into Beijing. She struggles to stay ahead at hurdles eight, nine and 10. So this is the plan this year and by the world champs you should see her maintain the lead that she sets up so well over the first three.

Jen was also able to film Tamsyn Lewis, Scott Martin, Fabrice Lapierre, Mitchell Watt, Henry Frayne, Sean Wroe, Steve Hooker, Paul Burgess, Kim Mickle, Collis Birmingham, Jeremy Roff and the men’s 4x100m relay, and has already distributed downloaded footage to many of them.

MONACO, July 26 - We had a relatively late start for the morning after a race. Often we’re catching buses at 5am for trips to the airport, but we had an 11.30am departure, so left our hotel at 8.40am. We were just about to go to our boarding gate at Gatwick airport and there was a fire evacuation of the entire building. There would have been close to 10,000 people in the airport! It went quite smoothly, but when we were able to re-enter, some people had to go all the way back through security. Flight got away after 40 minutes delay and the Herculis volunteers were waiting at Nice airport to transport us to Monaco.  

Monaco is built on the side of very steep hills and our hotel is about 150m straight UP from the athlete hotel. Great workout for the calves. I can stay at the athlete hotel same as Sal if I want, but it’s €200 twin share EACH person. Way too expensive for me. Denise Boyd found a place for us which is only €75 for the room and Jen and I are sharing, and Craig Hilliard and Grant Ward are sharing.   

It’s now Monday and Sally did a pool session this morning at the hotel pool. Lots of quizzical looks from the sunbathers nearby. It’s great that we’re able to do only pool sessions this week in between three hard races. We’re also able to get the speed endurance sessions that we want from the pool sessions as well.  

We’re back in our hotel now after stopping off at a supermarket (good excuse to rest the heart and the calves as well) on the way back up and grabbing some rolls and bananas for lunch. Juice comes in a can over here, just like soft drink!

Jen is still analysing data from the other girls in the race, so we can compare where their takeoffs are, landings, what their speed is over the hurdles etc.

My big project for this afternoon is to get the PB Series programs done. I have been working on them since I left Australia off and on, but really need to get them out into the public domain today if possible.

For those of you who have a business, the last couple of weeks have been seriously hectic, with end of financial year chaos. I had to pay the equivalent of $31AUD to print three documents (just one page of each though!) from a flash drive, sign them and then scan them back onto the flash drive. Then I emailed them back home. I get a bit 'ratty' in the changing timezones as well, and paid one of my staff twice and one not at all. I’ll be more diligent on payday this week. Lots to still keep me busy from the other side of the world.

I will catch up with you all again after the race tomorrow night.

Cheers.

Read previous updates and keep up to date with the latest news from Sharon here.