25.10.2007

Stars of the future get mentor edge

Middle distance running is a hard game.

In the quarter-century since Melbourne’s Peter Bourke won his Commonwealth Games gold medal over 800m in Brisbane, the landscape of the discipline has changed.

Then again, so has the sport in general.

Athletics has always pitted its stars in mental and physical battles. Who has the greater endurance. The least stage fright. Is mentally toughest.

Today these things are shaped more and more by an athlete’s support network, from nutrition to psychology to sports science.

No longer does one reach the pinnacle from devoting hours - and kilometres - to a cow paddock.

“Middle distance, especially the 8’ and the 15’, has just gone quantum leap in the last 10 years with (Hicham) El Guerrouj and these sort of people setting new benchmarks,” Bourke said, referring to the Moroccan 1500m world record-holder and dual Olympic Games gold medallist.

However, a key ingredient in the development and sustainability of an athlete is mentorship. The encouragement of someone who’s been there before or, if not, can at least cast a streetlight on what may seem an ill-lit road.

Of course, this is a philosophy adopted by many sportspeople but one that has been executed very well in ours by Athletics International (AI) - the somewhat ‘past players’ contingent of Australian track and field.

Earlier this year, AI committed resources to the future by allocating funding to Athletics Australia’s National Under-19 Talent Squad - a group of emerging athletes who share the prospect of one day representing their country at senior level.

That funding has been complemented by the allocation of mentors to the youngsters, which has had much success.

In Bourke’s case he found himself matched with Craig Huffer, a young man coached by his brother Dean and former national level sprinter Mark Ladbrook and with plenty of promise in the middle distance caper. In fact, Huffer was in the position Bourke was around three decades earlier.

“So far it’s been fantastic,” Bourke enthused and, from all accounts, you’d expect Huffer to return the compliment.

The pair met in April, at the first of two squad camps held at the Australian Institute of Sport to facilitate workshops, presentations and educational sessions geared towards the big picture of athletics - the honour, achievement and excitement of what is national representation.

From there, mentors and mentees were sent away with a whisper of encouragement to maintain the good work they’d started. So they did.

“I was approached by Athletics Australia via (Athletics International’s) Maxine Corcoran and asked would I like to participate in it,” Bourke recalled. “Recognising that we need to nurture the talent between the junior years and when they establish themselves as senior athletes…(I) thought ‘I’ll take this with both hands’.”

On numerous occasions, Athletics Australia’s national youth performance manager Sara Mulkearns has highlighted Bourke’s commitment to the program and, of course, his growing relationship with Huffer. Though not as a coach.

“My role is to act as a support and certainly not to tell him what to do in a coach capacity but to say ‘hey, this is what happened to me’,” Bourke said. “Basically make him aware of any of the pitfalls that can arise, and they will arise too.

“When you finish and come out of the junior ranks, especially your formative years, to have a mentoring program (is very important). You have your coach but your coach can only do so much, just to have a bit of a back-up support, someone to be acting out as a sounding board as such. I had Franz (Stampfl) but I looked on Franz as more than just a coach and I know the circumstances have changed a hell of a lot since. If this program had have been in place 10 or 15 years ago, we probably would have retained a lot of talent and athletes still in the sport now.”

Olympian Susan Andrews, a more recent retiree, also sees the immense benefit of Athletics International’s involvement and the creation of this program.

Her position is a little bit different. As an athlete she sizzled on the track over 400m and 800m, but in this role works in support of young West Australian pole vaulter Rachel Birtles.

“I don’t know a huge amount about pole vault,” Andrews said. “I had heard a little bit about Rachel and had been following her progress. The pole vaulters do so well here in Western Australia so I’m always kind of following what they’re up to.

“It’s been great to meet her and just be involved with the whole thing, just go down and watch occasionally. Alex (Parnov) is quite an incredible coach too so I feel like I can learn just by watching.”

Andrews, now 36, sees similarities between her and Birtles, particularly since the youngster’s experience at the World Youth Championships in Ostrava, Czech Republic in July.

“After Rachel came back from the World Youths I had a breakfast with her, we sat and had a chat and I just noticed this change in her,” she said. “She was a fairly reserved girl before she went away and she came back and had such an absolute ball over there and she competed well. It was just so exciting.

“To talk to her reminded me so much of when I first started and all the benefits being an athlete can give you when you go away on your first trips and the experience and enthusiasm it creates. I just thought that was great, what a fantastic sport and what it can do for people.

“The confidence that you get from when you start off as a junior, you develop as a person every time,” she continued. “I came back from a trip and I can see this in Rachel too. You change a little bit, just through the experiences and I think that transfers to the rest of your life. I can see Rachel is so much more confident from that and I felt the same thing; it just gave me confidence and with the career that I’m involved in at this stage, there are so many paths of athletics and aspects I learnt through being an athlete that do transfer quite well.

“You don’t notice it until you stop and think ‘I learnt that through being an athlete’. I learnt that you have your good times and you have your bad times but if you just keep persisting and persisting you’ll eventually get through them and come out the other end.”

While Andrews was unable to attend this month’s camp in Canberra, she has been consistent in her contact with Birtles - whether it’s meeting up or via something as simple as a text message.

“The first camp was great,” she said. “After that I’ve been to see her at training a couple of times, particularly before the World Youth Championships. She was competing to make sure she had her qualifying height before she went away and then we kept in touch via text message while she was actually overseas competing.

“We were both texting, finding out how she was going and I gave her a few little tips…keep confident, keep calm and that kind of thing. Now it’s on the phone and meeting up here and there as well.

“(The program) seems to be very successful. The best thing is that people are emailing everyone else so we’re finding out what’s happening all around Australia with the different partnerships.”

Andrews, who won World Junior Championships relay gold in the early stages of a career that included Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games and World Championships appearances, considers the most enjoyable years of her career to be those that 17 year-old Birtles is experiencing now.

“I have to say my favourite years were as a junior,” she gushed. “I was actually a really good junior, probably wasn’t as good a senior as I was a junior.

“I also made a lot of great friends and they’re some of my best friends still today. The 4x400 is such a fantastic event to be involved in and all the opportunities that provides, in a team environment and the friends that you make as well. I did well and got to travel all over the place. I have very fond memories.”

Bourke’s venture out of junior competition brought its share of challenges; experiences that he can today promote to Huffer and, potentially, other athletes of his ilk.

It’s where the role of mentor has the capacity to really contribute - that is, should injury, poor form, lack of confidence or other obstacles creep in.

“I remember I’d left school, going up to see Franz and being daunted by this figure that I had known of so well when in the juniors,” Bourke reflected. “Going from the under-19 program and not really establishing myself for say two or three years, it was probably hard to gain the respect of the other senior athletes which was fair enough too.

“I remember when in the juniors in ’77 and then the next year as a senior athlete I got injured. You can have the highs one year and the lows the next year. This is the thing we need to try and harness and capture; encourage these kids that when they have their downer it’s not a permanent downer. It’s obviously part of their learning curve and bringing them through slowly.”

This summer, when you see Huffer, Birtles or any of the 21 talent squad graduates in training or competition, consider another loyal soul in the stands, on the web or by the phone keeping up with their young charge.

Some of these relationships will be stronger than others, last longer than others. But what the athlete takes from the experience is of most importance.

For Bourke, it also provides a means of repaying the sport - and the people - that nurtured him.

“At this stage, am I ready to coach?” he considered. “I don’t know, time doesn’t allow me to. (It’s been good) to see how (Craig)’s progressing through as well, trying to put myself back into his shoes as to how I would have acted back as a 17 or 18 year-old boy.

“I don’t look at this as a one-year sort of thing. I think it’s a cradle-to-grave journey really. If at any stage he doesn’t feel comfortable, it’s not going to offend me. This is not a five-minute thing, this is forming someone’s career.

“To have an involvement without being a full-on involvement, it’s been a rewarding experience.”

Trust it’s been Huffer’s reward too.

By Steven Lavell

Athletics Australia’s National Under-19 Talent Squad (mentors in brackets):

Jared Bezuidenhout (Phil May), Daniel Martin (Bob Lay), Jacinta Doyle (Warren Parr), Josh Lumley (Chris Commons), Rachel Birtles (Susan Andrews), Vicky Parnov (Chris Stanton), Matei Tzvetanov (Trevor Bickle), Joshua Heap (John Atkinson), Rhys Murphy (Gordon Windeyer), Jamie Keehn (Ron Carlton), Jamal Idris (Peter Hadfield), Matthew Cherry (Matt McEwen), Ryan Gregson (Shaun Creighton), Lexy Gilmour (Angie Cook), Craig Huffer (Peter Bourke), Mitch Frey (Julian Paynter), Kurt Mulcahy (Mark Garner), Olivia Tauro (Jane Flemming), Brook Keys (Andrew Jachno), Hamish Peacock (Graham Haskell) and Alex Lorraway (Jai Taurima).