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Coaches from rugby, swimming and tennis are now joining year two of the programme that aims to produce more winning athletes by instilling a culture of excellence in Scottish coaches.
Coach To Win recognises the crucial role of coaching in achieving international success for Scottish sport and sets out to provide a range of opportunities for coaches, including winning mentality workshops, mentoring sessions and overseas training camps.
“The programme has been extremely helpful in giving me a lot of coach development and mentoring opportunities that I wouldn’t have had normally,” said Mhairi Brown, Head of Performance at Edinburgh’s Craiglockhart Tennis Centre, and coach to East of Scotland Institute of Sport supported athletes.
The partners involved in last year’s pilot are Coaching Edinburgh, Edinburgh Leisure, East of Scotland Institute of Sport (ESIS), The Scottish Institute of Sport Foundation and relevant National Governing Bodies (NGBs).
Some £15,000 as invested in 2007, enabling seven coaches to undertake the [3] year-long personal development plan.
One of the key elements of the programme will be the opportunity to participate in overseas training camps. This followed a study published by the Scottish Institute of Sport Foundation, which showed that Scotland’s athletes and coaches are seriously disadvantaged by a lack of exposure to international coaching methods.
“I have had coach mentoring from Judy Murray and Louis Cayer, Jamie Murray’s doubles coach and I’ve been to tournaments and training camps abroad which have given invaluable experience,” said Brown who has been nominated for a second year on the programme.
“I’m learning and improving all the time which has a knock on effect with my athletes. I have more knowledge to share with them and have learnt better ways of getting messages across to them.”
The first seven coaches in the three-year programme worked with ESIS in Edinburgh in tennis, badminton, diving, rugby and cycling. They include Commonwealth Games medallist and national cycling coach James McCallum and Scotland rugby under-20s head coach, Colin Robertson.
New to the Coach to Win programme this year are Marcel du Coudray, tennis Academy Coach, Merchiston and St Georges schools), Gordon Glasgow (swimming Performance Coach, West Lothian) and Graham Sheil (National Academy Coach for rugby).
“Getting the chance to go through this process is very exciting,” said Gordon Glasgow, the programme’s first swimming coach.
“Coach to Win will give me a great opportunity to meet senior coaches from around the country and take up educational courses I might not have been able to access, or had the funding to do before.
“With the NGB I’ve identified swim programmes around the country that have coaches I’d like to meet. I’m hoping to go to the European Short Course Championships in Croatia at the end of the year to see how other countries prepare their athletes ready for a major meet.
“Each of these experiences will be tailored toward a specific goal that I can build into my coaching repertoire and apply to my club programme. Each of these experiences will benefit each of my swimmers.”