TONI MINICHIELLO

General notes

• Coach To Rio blog website – website link
• Pastor Martin Niemöller – First They Came poem – wikipedia link
• Katy Marchant’s debt of gratitude to Toni Minichiello – newspaper article
• John Lyle coaching literature – google scholar link

Olympic Games notes

• Jessica Ennis-Hill, Greg Rutherford & Mo Farah on Super Saturday | London 2012 – youtube link
• Jessica Ennis-Hill: A Coach’s Story BBC Documentary 2016 – youtube link
• Women’s Heptathlon Long Jump & Javelin Highlights – London 2012 Olympics – youtube link

TONI MINICHIELLO

Tony Minichiello 00:00
I’ve got to say this Ben, what I find really fascinating again about team sports, rugby coaches, they are halfway up the stand, they’re viewing it from an elevated position and there’s this and they feed down to coaches on the side and then communicate, they’ve got this view. Football coaches you’re at grass pitch level coaching like this, you can’t see space and stuff, but they still do it.

Ben Ryan 00:22
There isn’t an answer for that I think they just followed.

Tony Minichiello 00:24
It’s cultural, it’s cultural, that’s what you do as a football manager you’re at grass level and you shout ‘Oi Oi below, below!’

Ben Ryan 00:30
You are only up in the stands if you’ve been red carded by the referee.

Tony Minichiello 00:33
So there’s that kind of thing, but nobody puts the… I know, I know why you probably wouldn’t put the manager’s box halfway up the stand with the crowd on top of it would be, awful. But I found that in Beijing 2015, they gave us a coaching spot, the officials, that was at flat level and so you’d be on the same level as the athletes, the athletes running towards you… couldn’t really see anything from that level but all the coaches stood there and they’re in this position and I thought… so I went up halfway up the stand and I looked down from there, and I could get this thing. And I was watching one of the athletes and you just like, it’s kind of obvious why they’re gonna foul, because they’re doing this at the beginning end and they’ve not dealt with it and they fouled and you’re like, you could see it panoramic view, you could see what was happening, you could see how they started how they were in the mid phase, and what was happening, you could see it coming, and you can make an adjustment. And I’m like, if you can’t see, you might as well not be there.

Ben Ryan 01:29
That’s a great example of actually, you’ve changed your position because you know, actually, that’s the right position to be is up there. Yeah, for for that rugby example. I mean, you look at football, NFL, NBA, all the head coaches that are on a lot more pay and have gotten a lot more risk if they lose a game. They’re all down at the bottom.

Tony Minichiello
I think sometimes coaches are like sheep. And I think it’s something you get over time as you go… that’s where they’ve told me to stand and those are the coaching seats but these are rubbish. So I’m going to… what I end up doing that, especially a major champs is you end up, you develop stadium skills. So yeah, I’m supposed to be sat there, and I’ve got a seat there. Fair enough. But it’s of no use to me. So I’m going to get up, I’m going to run round and when my athlete does whatever I’m going to watch from here, and then I’m going to run back and have a conversation because they kind of put you close to the athletes. So the conversation’s easy. But you kind of go… I’m running all the way around there, watch it from there, and then I’ll run all the way back and have a conversation. So it’s always you just, I suppose that’s probably my nature is never be satisfied with what they give you. Team sports fascinate me, because really, I coach one to one. So I have one individual, and it’s about enhancing that individual to be better at being that individual. Whereas when you look at team sports, what fascinates me is not only have you got to do that, but then that piece, that person, that one piece has to fit with that piece and that piece and form a picture like a jigsaw and you go, “oh, that’s interesting. How do you do that?” because then… I suppose there is always a conundrum within athletics is that if you’ve got a group of five or six athletes, you would set the training sessions, and they’re right physiologically, but then this athlete needs a bit more recovery, this one needs a bit less, they need to run a bit quicker. So what you’d find is are set times for people… so if they’re running a 200 metre, I’ll set times for people, they’ll all set off together, but then they’re coming across the line slightly different “bing, bing, bing, bing, bing”. “Oh, great time. Not a very good time, needs to be a bit quicker, set off harder at the gate. Yeah, that spot on. You working too hard, slow down”, this kind of thing. You’ve got that measurement, they all start together but they finish different. So you’re always you’re adjusting it, you’re kind… of water finds its level. So you kind of write the session based on probably the best individual, which isn’t perfect, because you’re writing sessions for them and then with others, you’re like, okay, but but don’t get me wrong if people are if people are struggling, you go right, you’re finished…which is interesting because when you say that to some athletes they are like ” you mean I’m doing two less than everybody else. Oh, no, hold on a minute. They’re getting more than me.” And that opens up a “no, no, no, no, no. Eight is the right number of runs for you. That’s what you need to be better. Yeah, but they’re doing ten which means I’m missing out.”

Ben Ryan
Have you organised that? So do the athletes know beforehand that they might do less they might do more because you’re gauging what they can and can’t do?

Tony Minichiello 04:24
There’s some elements to it. There’s some elements to it. And then you’ve got to… not only have you got to set the session for them, so right you’re doing eight runs, they’re doing 10 this kind of thing so they’ll have a pre written programme, but then within the session, you go actually seven’s enough, you’ve gone you’ve gone over the top, the times have just gone completely, you know. And so you have to then judge the individual and make the call at the same time or if the session is going swimmingly really well, you kind of go “fancy running a ninth? No, no, no!” I used to have this with Jess a lot that she would go ” On no it’s says four reps on my thing. That’s all I have to do.” “No, no, no, you’re you’re good. You could run a fifth”. “No, no, no, it says that on there.” “Do you know who wrote that?” “Well it says four. That’s all I have to do”. Back and forth and it whatever… it’s a battle of wills at that point as to whether, you know, actually, physiologically you could run a fifth. But I remember, where were we…. it was Portugal, and we were leading into 2012 and the final session that she would run, before the heptathlon track race 200 metre session is three times 150 metres, the first one from blocks from the 200 metre start round the bend and halfway down the straight. More traditionally, when you run 150 metres, you’re running halfway down, round the bend, and then down the straight. But we’d run one round the bend halfway down the straight, possibly two, that way, and then certainly finish with half bend down the straight. So beginning of the race, drive out, the setup for that was that… well, she ran two, she ran one round the turn and down the halfway straight and was about 16 point something seconds, I was like this, okay, 10, 12, 15 minutes recovery, right, run the second one, halfway around the turn straight down the straight and I was like, that’s even quicker. And I just went, “okay, that’s you done.” She was just looking at me and saying “no, no it says three” and I went, “you’ve done two, and you’ve smashed them both out of sight, we are done. I know you’re ready to go” and we’re competing in 5, 6, 5 days sort of thing. And I’m like, “no, that’s it, we’re pulling the plug, you’re in shape beyond belief, I’m not going to risk a third” then it becomes a discussion between you and the athlete. And it’s like, my concern is is I don’t want to defend your confidence, I want you to understand, we’ve done two, because you were outstanding. And I love you being outstanding, and that’s fine. So you don’t need to do any more. You’re not missing out. Nobody’s taking anything away from you. And that that relationship piece is an interesting thing, I think, with athletes and that’s what…and I find that fascinating. And going back to this difference between team sports an individual, I’ll spend a lot of time on that relationship piece because I coach people one to one, so I know about each other. I know what your mom and dad are called, your brothers and sisters and so on, you’re building it up over time. Whereas the team thing, hold on, I’m juggling 10 different 12, 15, 20 different plates of individuals. And can I spend as much time from a team coach point of view… can I spend enough time fostering that tighter relationship in 15 or more directions? That must be hard…

Ben Ryan 07:39
Yeah, I mean, that’s I guess for me, that’s what sets out the great coaches in team sports that they do understand the individuals better and they do exactly what you’re doing and then get good people around them to cover off some of the other other skills. Because I mean, I think I probably know where you stand on data and sports science. But for me, if you’re not going to win a big match it’s because that athlete’s not quite got it. There’s something there that’s missing and normally, it’s the mental side. When you were talking about when you can see someone’s had enough, you’re obviously looking at some of their movement, but there’s also a gut feeling, I guess?

Tony Minichiello
Let me tell you a story. It’s true story, London, London 2012 in the long jump, and we’d spent a long time working on long jump… Jess’ long jump going into 2012 was… started off well indoors and then just disappeared and it was awful. Got no other way to describe it. It just became awful, whether I’d over coached it or something but something disappeared and you were like, really struggling to work out what it was and indoors she struggled a bit with her runway and so on… and over the years… so the the background to it is in 2008 she broke her foot, her right foot.

Ben Ryan
You got her jumping off her other foot didn’t you?

Tony Minichiello 08:54
So I got her jumping off the left. So again, it was never quite the natural feel. If you imagine kicking a rugby, if you’re kicking with your right for all your career and somebody says now you can’t do that… with your left…

Ben Ryan 09:04
I find that incredible to say that… it can’t be easy just to suddenly go ‘Right, we’re going off the other foot now’.

Tony Minichiello 09:10
I’d like to say it’s not easy because then that makes me sound like I’m really clever. But I it’s it’s something you work at, what I don’t think you ever quite get is it just doesn’t quite have that final finesse feel, that touch that you will have with your right foot isn’t quite there with the other foot. But it can be 99% there, but that little 1% sort of thing. So we’d spent, we spent three years to that point working off the left foot and jumping off the left foot. We’d adjusted the runway. She was 19 strides. 17 strides, less speed so she could cope with the speed better. We’ve done things like that. So when it came to the actual competition, or the training camp before we did four long jump sessions in about 12 days in the holding camp, which is unheard of you, do two, three and one of those is just a runway check really, it’s a bit of a throwaway. Just yeah, we’re okay. And we did four and the first three. They were awful. But as a coach, you lie. And you go “yeah, that’s coming now I’m seeing that, that’s what we’re working on today. That’s got better. I think, you know what, that session went all right”, doing all these positive noises. But then the fourth session I went, “actually, no, that is the best session, we’ve we’ve hit something there, we’ve found it” and it was more about striking the board striking the board beneath you and so on. So that was fine. So it was like… so day two, first event this is what I don’t think the public realise.. it’s kind of its proper do or die long jump first event. You’re doing well after the first day…you’re up. It’s fantastic. But this event could bury you completely. So your medal will be won or lost in this even I know. I mean, obviously, there’s three more events but for me personally, I’m like, “this is it. This will, this is the thing.” So she ran down the runway we checked it made adjustments, yeah, fine. Two runways, that’s what you’re allowed. And then the competition starts… she come trucking down the runway, she jumps, crowds the board a little bit like that, and I’m going okay, and she’s a bit nervous and she jumped, she jumped six metres or something like that. And I was like, phew, right? We’ve got some numbers on the board. Not good but I got a legal jump in. It’s not zero points. Nul point. It’s it’s we’ve got something on the board. And then I’m like ok and Brycie the biomechanist taps me and says “how many strikes you take on the runway?” I went “17 you know that? What are you talking about?” “She’s taking 19 strides”. “Shut up you daft beggar?” And she’s at the bottom of the stairs, and she’s looking at me waving like this. And I’m like “just go put your T shirt on. I’ll just check the film. And I’ll come and I’m looking at Bryce again. You talking proverbial? And he went no look, and I’m looking at the film and I’m going like, 15, 16 there’s no board, 17, 18. Okay, and he says what are you’re going to do. I said, no clue, but I’ll work it out by the time I get to her. So I’m going down the stairs and I’m thinking what do you do at this point? And the confidence and the relationship here what are you going to talk about and that and what I thought was, you know what she doesn’t know. And my first point was, “How’s that feel? It’s good. Well, we got points on the board. She went Yeah, but this that the other. Okay, let me listen to what you’re telling me. Oh, I felt a bit tight. And is this and I said yeah, cuz you’re crowding the board? Obviously because you’re taking two more strides but I looked fine in warm-up, I said well move it back a couple of strides. The adrenaline’s pumping, you’re running at this thing. Let’s have a look at it. And she moved back a little bit jumped 7.30 odd in the second round and just improved in the in the third round and it went from there, so it was fine. And even and if you go back and look at the video footage very un Jessica Ennis Hill like, is she comes out the pit after the third jump and she does this double fist pump celebration thing. That’s not Jess that’s never been Jess she has never has that aggressive celebration thing… it was like so there’s a point now where it was absolute relief because she knew that long jump been going badly. And this sort of thing she comes out I don’t respond like that. So anyway, the following day, we’re in Adidas hospitality. And I was like do you know yesterday, you know, the long jump says, yeah, I said, you know, you’re taking 19 steps look, have a look at the videos. She just turned and looked at me and said ‘I still won right’ Yeah, you did. You kind of go its gone. I think the thing is…the take away from that, that I kind of learnt is that coach the moment, not coach the clipboard. This was my plan and we will stick to my plan regardless, Oh, hold on, it’s not working like that. Don’t be wedded to that…have the flexibility as a coach to go “Hold on what is actually going on, switch the computer off, switch, the analytics are telling me one thing, but what I’m seeing is something different. Switch it off, switch it off, I’m not going to be governed by that I’m going to coach what I see. And that for me, I think is a reinforcement of that, that when you coach don’t coach to the textbook, coach the person and what you’re seeing in front of you is the critical takeaway that but it is… no but my plan is sacrosanct.

Ben Ryan 14:20
You get that right, because you have got, you know, vast wealth of experience now and I’ve been in Premier League football clubs where they’re doing exactly that as well. The manager might have 20 million pounds worth of software that are telling them exactly what’s going on and they are saying “well that’s not what I’m seeing and it’s an information tool for me but it’s not going to I’m not deciding whether that lads coming off or on based on that”. Do you think you would have made then that same way you approached that conversation with Jess for that long jump 15, 20 years earlier? Do you think you would have had the tools then what would you have done? Because some of the young coaches now they almost think sport science unless you’re fully wrapping it around everything you’re doing you’re almost not legit as a coach…

Tony Minichiello
Toys boys and boys and toys, coaches and toys. No, I wouldn’t have.. I think I would have been like, “No, no, no, it needs to be this. I need to jam that square peg into that round hole” but then eventually you realise it doesn’t fit. It doesn’t fit. Just chill. Actually, it doesn’t matter step back but…we’d be doing track sessions and it’s pissing down with rain and it’s like, “No, we will run 12 reps, and it’s freezing and the times are crap. And you’re like, no, but it says, 12. We will do it”. And then you suddenly realise, “you know what, let’s not do that session today. Let’s do this. We get away with it. I know the weather forecast tomorrow’s better, we’ll just flip the sessions. And we’ll do this”. And it’s having that. I don’t I don’t want you confidence in and comfortable in. Yeah, it’s, yeah, it’s alright.

Ben Ryan
There is a bit of a recipe isn’t there and you’re putting in and taking stuff away.

Tony Minichiello 15:52
And it’s that… it’s not laid back, it’s not laissez faire, but it’s certainly establishing the environment and having a real good look at it. And understanding that you can tackle a problem from a number of different directions. John Lisle in a lot of his coaching literature talks about world class sport, performance sport is about decision making, better decisions are made that’s why they’re so much better. And I would agree with that but I think the really good guys understand the landscape. So as you sit here, and I’m viewing the track, from my position, I see the landscape and I view it but I can also run over there and view the track and look at it from a different angle. Look at it from different angles. So yes, it’s about making good decisions, but it’s about the understanding what the question is, the problem is, peeling it and really looking at it going…that’s the issue. Not all this stuff on the periphery. That’s the issue. So why am I going to waste my time trying to force a good session on you, that isn’t going to happen? So let’s do something different. I can do that physiological session tomorrow. Or I can flip it. And I’d often have that if… if Jess was injured, or any of my athletes are injured they were like “Are we going to catch this work up in the rest of the week?” And it’s like, “Where do you want me to put it?” So you want to train three times tomorrow? Or four times the following day and five days? You want us to just spread it out? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So there’s only 24 hours in a day you want to train for 25… can’t be done. So once you start to go, actually, yeah, it doesn’t matter. And I don’t mean that blasé and just nothing matters. But you look at it and go, okay, that’s gone. Fine. Don’t be wedded to it. We’ll just readjust the plan as we go forwards and do this.

Ben Ryan 17:35
And what’s your plan? What what’s your planning like? You say you’re a meticulous planner?

Tony Minichiello
I used to be stationary catalogue man. I’d have loads of coloured pens. We’ve all done loads of things. And I still do, I still do year plans. I haven’t got them with me but I still do year plans by hand. I like, doing them by hand, because I don’t know, I’m thinking as I’m doing them. But then everything else is on like a Word document and I type in the boxes. And then when I look at stuff, because then you can judge the week, Monday through to Sunday across. But then you can judge the four weeks and you can put the increased volume in… so you go right, we’re running 700 metres that day, we’ll do 725 the following week 750, then back down to 690 is a recovery week just step, step, step and back. And I can see the structure. And that’s how I do it. But it takes… the first plan always takes ages. And then the rest of the group it slots in after that. I don’t know whether it’s it just you end up spending a lot of time sort of mixing it and understanding it, the first one and that takes a good couple of hours. Good hour and a half.

Ben Ryan
Do you do that on your own? Or do you I mean, there’s different layers here because I guess as you’ve moved through, you’ve got other people that you bring in and you bring in specialists, either for events or for conditioning or biomechanics, something like that. Is it you at the start?

Tony Minichiello
To be honest, I’ll do virtually all of it on my own. When I was fortunate enough that we got people like Steve Ingham as a physiologist, you get some idea of how much recovery should be between this, what what’s a good volume to have? What is it worth? Because you start to look at people year on year and you go, how do I add 1% 2% 5%? Well, you’re either going to run the session faster, same session, or you’re going to increase the volume in that session or you’re going to shorten the recovery, whatever, you’re gonna have to make some because the body loves confusion so you’re gonna have to give it some tweak in some way. But what you can do, you can quite quickly do is you start layering on layering and on layering and on you’re like, why are we running 3000 metres worth of short sprint’s here because it’s more than last year? Oh, that’s not appropriate. What we should be doing is that… so you would some I would sometimes use physiologists and touch base on what they’re doing.

Ben Ryan
As a sounding board, I guess?

Tony Minichiello 19:57
And yeah, more than anything and then having written the programme and then passed it to the athlete, the athlete will stare at it sort of blankly for hours and go on and they’re usually looking at the tough. They’re trying to find the toughest session and go, “Oh, I gotta run that. Yes, in three weeks time. Don’t worry about that now”, but then, again speaking to them, so it depends on the athlete, depends on the relationship, depends on their maturity, I would say, because some athletes are blind, subservient. And just yeah, just tell me what to do. I just do it. Other people are sorry, you need to explain that to me, it’s more scientific. What’s that gonna do for me and so on. And then other people are like, ‘Can we discuss it a bit?’ And there’s a bit more to and fro. So it depends on their personality? A lot of people in my group currently, they’re a bit subservient. And you go, ‘what do you think? Do you think that’s enough runs? Do you want to do a bit more speed work?’ Yeah. And you’re like, okay, it’s not really convincing. Yes. Do you? Whatever you think? No, I want to know what you think. And it’s, it’s awkward. Whereas Jess did eventually in the latter years sort of go “Can we do a bit more speed work?” I’m going okay. Right, where? Where can we fit that in? Where does it fit, then if you want to do that, because these are key sessions, I’m gonna keep those with your splits. So it depends on their experience and what they want to put to it and also whether they they feel they’ve got the permission to do that. I think a lot of coach athlete relationships will break down where they, you know, they want to put something into the mix. They want to be responsible for it. And a coach doesn’t allow it. Yeah. And that I think is tough. Then it becomes it becomes gritty, because I don’t know what you find. Some people are like, they don’t need to do a lot of work. They’re fine. And then you get the Tarzan, Jane type people who some train like Tarzan compete like Jane some train like Jane, but my word when they when they compete. Crikey, who’s that? Wow, they just do things. I’ve done it before, had an athlete run 150 metre rep, and I’m looking at him going, that just looks awful. That’s absolute. And then looked at the stopwatch and gone. Oh, that was really quick, well done. Because it just didn’t look like I thought it should look. And then you just look at them and go, yeah, they don’t they look effortless. They look absolutely effortless. And you’re like, great, great times, you’re running exactly what I want you to do.

Ben Ryan 20:18
I mean, there’s two things here from the planning bit… you do share, then your plan with the athletes fairly early on. I’ve been with NFL athletes, and one of their biggest issues they have often with their coaches that they don’t get told the plan for the week. And it’s not because they want to plan what they’re doing in the day off. It’s just they want to know what’s ahead of them to prepare and feel, feel they’re all part of the process.

Tony Minichiello 22:41
Yeah, I think that everybody does… everybody plans from what you wearing first thing in the morning, what time you’re going to get up, you’ve got a plan and an idea of what you’re doing. So it is important that they’ve got the plan, they know what’s happening. They know they’ve got a day off here and there and whatever they go, “Ah ok, I get that”. And that because everybody wants to organise their life because there’s more going on than just sport. So no, I agree. I agree with that. Totally, that kind of detail is needed.

Ben Ryan 23:08
And the other bit that you talked about with Jess that she could tell you she felt safe in being able to say to you I’ll do a little bit more of that and some of the younger, maybe I don’t know if I’m right, but some of the athletes you might be working with, they’re not as forward in doing that, like a psychologist would say it’s it’s creating that, that safe environment where I can come and talk to you, as a coach, tell you exactly how I feel and you’re not going to turn around and think well, he’s no good or put a black mark by it. Do you think that’s… do you think it’s important to create that safety between athlete or to him there still needs to… there still needs to be space between athlete and coach so that that coach is clearly in control?

Tony Minichiello 23:46
So to answer that with a question, the question is, why? Not why would you do that? But when that is thrown into the mix, you go Why? Why do you feel you need to do more speed? What are you feeling that you’ve not? Okay, let’s talk that through. I’m not… we’re never going to accept anything full on but if you’re questioning what I’ve written, and I’ve written it for this reason, so I know that, even though you may not, but I know what… I am in my position and I understand the landscape from where I’m looking at it, you’re seeing it slightly different. Tell me why… educate me. And I do like that. I do like that an athlete to take a bit of responsibility and go well tell me or is it you know, I’m knackered after six runs, I don’t want to do a seventh. Well actually, you do need a seventh because that’s where we create a physiological change. Or it’s it’s so so one of the one of the girls in the group currently struggles with long speed endurance, it’s just she’s quick, she’s great long jumper, good high jumper, throwing is improving, has got reasonable flat speed but struggles with sort of you you. If she runs 200 if she runs a 200 metres, she can run a great 140 but the last 60 you just see this thing just really fade so she needs to work in that area. So when we’re doing sessions of that, to try and improve that for her, she’s like, I’m just crap at these sessions so I’m going, Yeah. But you will get better. And this is what we need to do. And this is why we’re going to do it and so on…. So there’s, there’s that buy in of I’m telling you why… I’m trying to see this is where it isn’t and you either accept it or you don’t. And then we look at it. And then I’m looking at the stopwatch, really. And if I’ve written five, and those are the judgement calls that you make that you see four runs, and the fourth run the times, wow, it’s really like, there’s no point in doing a fifth because that’s as much as you’ve got in the tank. So there’s the safety buffer but there’s got to be a why let’s have a discussion around what that means and what we’re doing, because I’ve written five for a reason, because I want the volume set by all those clever scientists as to what the volume should be and you’re going to deviate from that. Well, let’s have a chat about why we should deviate from that.

Ben Ryan 25:53
So we have have that a lot as coaches in team sports, where we’ll do something and I and I’ve done it before. I was in Fiji and I wanted to do a 40 metre speed test to measure just how fast the boys were… just to get baseline to improve. So I’ve got I didn’t have any speed gates or high speed cameras that we used to have with England, but I had my phone to measure the speed and I had a plastic bag and a coconut tree and off they went and they sprinted. And they were the slowest I’ve ever recorded. And they were getting slower and slower and my Fijian physio William, I said, you know, have I done something wrong to upset them? What can I What can I do? And he said, just get someone to chase them. So put someone two metres behind and they ran because didn’t want to get caught. And then he said, put someone in front with a rugby ball. And they chased them. And the problem was I had not explained… I just thought they’d assume give them a baseline improve over certain amount of weeks with some training to get faster. They just thought ‘What’s this ginger bloke making me run to the plastic bag? It’s not fun. I’m not I’m not scoring a try. I’m not getting fitter’. And so from that moment, it was just connect everything I do. Has that changed as you’ve got experience? Or do you always, you always pretty good at kind of narrating telling the story to the athlete about what you’re trying to achieve?

Tony Minichiello 27:05
That’s an interesting question. Because I’d like to think I am but the proof in the pudding is from them really is they’ll tell you whether that fits does that make sense this is you understand that so on. And this is what it means and so on. I’m always a great believer in lots of different analogies and stuff like that, like one of the girls, when she throws I said, you know what you like a crisp packet. When you are like crazy, you know, you take a crisp packet and you crunch it in your hand. And it stays really tight, this sort of thing. But then when you let go of it, it just goes and it opens up. That’s how you throw. So when you’ve got to have tension in the middle of the circle, but when you land you like unfold, like a crisp packet. So I’m always using the analogy and stuff like that.

Ben Ryan 27:47
Is storytelling is quite important as a coach?

Tony Minichiello 27:49
I personally think so… is the way I communicate through that, the more you can reiterate through story or metaphor or feeling in that, then you get it… because ultimately what we’re trying to do as coaches, whether we like it or not, we’re trying to make ourselves irrelevant, redundant, or like, like a cordial drink in a pint of water. When you put the cordial in at the bottom, it’s like really rich in that and then you add the water and the thing disperses throughout. You’re trying to make yourself like I say redundant. What I’m trying to do, though, is leave a residue in you that when you’re out on the field of play, you can look after yourself because you go aha it’s this. And this is what I do. This is it’s a learned response and you can look after yourself. That’s what you’re trying to do because at the end of the day, I said this to Jess because she always used to accuse me of cheesy sayings, but I said, Look, as a coach, I can only tell you about history. You have to deal with the future. And she’s looked at me and gone ‘What are you talking drivel again’ and I went no look, you run down a long jump runway. And I can take video footage and you run and you jump and you land in the sandpit. And then we talk about it. And we’d set out what you were going to do. You’re going to run down the runway, you’re going to drive your knee. And then I’m going to say well, do you think you did it? Did you drive your knee and you go Yeah, I thought I did it and I go Okay, we’ll look at the video footage. Oh, look, okay, you drove it, but maybe you should drive it a little bit more. Okay, there’s feedback, right? Okay. Now, I’ve only told you about the past. And I’ve showed you video of the past, you now have to go back to the top of runway and apply it and create a future. So again, that’s the thing you’re doing as a coach, you’re only ever giving them feedback as what happened. And I think if you do this and this, we should get this outcome. But off you go, you do it. Roll the dice and let’s see how you come out. So anything that gets that across.

Ben Ryan 29:45
Do you think most of your most of your experience as a coach you think it’s self taught would you say you’re self taught? Have you had many mentors?

Tony Minichiello 29:53
Mentors? Yeah, certainly there was certainly one or two of my other coaches that I had when I was growing up and certainly Andy Baron, who was, I worked with for about three years who was actually, is actually president of Israeli Athletics now. And he made me read outside the sport, to look at more planning and these kind of things, whereas everything up to that point, but then other coaches that I had sort of indicated to me was the work ethic, the amount of work and volume and that more is better. And I think between the two, you end up I think, a pale limitation of all of them, add your own little mix in and so on. But again, you can’t be wedded to those things because this is where I think a lot of athletes, ex-athletes, high performing athletes struggle is because the person you’re now coaching is not you. So what works for you won’t work for them, because they’re a different size, shape and have different skills. So being able to take what you know, and apply it to that individual, but then apply it differently. I’ve seen a lot of athletes fail, oh, you need to be doing this, you should be doing that. And it’s like, they’re not you. They don’t have the speed that you had. Actually, they do things different. So therefore, this is the thing… you see a lot, I think, and that’s why I think a lot of people talk about athletes or coach programmes or no, it should be automatic, because there have been absolutely fantastic you should be able to tell everybody how to be fantastic. And it’s like, well, you really want to talk to is the person who made them fantastic. And go, what did you do for that person? That’s the application of what they need to know to apply to somebody else. So it’s, it’s always that thing. And it’s, I’ve seen a lot of athletes dabble in coaching, and not understand it. Because, remember, one of the one of the ex athletes 400 metre runner was doing a session of drills. And one of the other parents, I was sat there listening, and one of the other parents went, ‘What if your athletes can’t do that drill?’ And he went, but that’s the drill. And it was fascinating, because I understood it straight away… and it was like, yeah, the drill has an element of skill to it but if you’re coaching seven to 11 year olds, how’d you break the drill down even further? And it’s like, no, but that’s the drill. That is it. It’s like, no, you be surprised foot contact this, that, how you lift your knee, young kids will struggle. So certainly for me when when you talk about self taught the experience, coaching across the age groups is critically important. Because if you can’t break it down to the simplest, simplest, simplest grain of sand, it doesn’t matter who the person is that if they can’t do it, or they can’t do something. If you can’t break it down for them, regardless how experienced and how successful they are, you’re never going to communicate it well. So you got to understand, okay, you need to lift your knee a little bit more.

Ben Ryan 32:44
So do many coaches in your position that will have world class Olympic champions that you’re coaching will they also go down to the age groups because for me, that’s an it’s an amazing tool to do exactly what you said, remind you of foundations, keep your skills high as far as being able to do exactly what you said, because in team sports, that’s often not the case, you’ll end up coaching top end teams, and you could ask an international coach sometimes about the core, the core workings of a tackle, and then they might not they might not be able to teach an eight year old kid that, they might not…

Tony Minichiello 33:17
But you’ll find one day you’ll have a senior player who’s brilliant, who can’t tackle worth anything and you’re like, oh, Christ, were you not taught properly when you’re younger, no, I just did this. Right, I now have to teach you. So you will need that in your locker. It’s difficult to do because you refine your skills if you’re used to… so if you’re used to driving a particular car, and then you get in another car, I’ve done it, I’ve hired a car and the windscreen wipers are on the other side and the sticks and your like every time I’m trying to turn right I was flicking this thing and the windscreen wipers go.. panic and kind of thing. So you you have to refine the skill, and you have to go back and forth and that so if I do teach a lot of younger kids, like I was, my daughter is seven, and she wants to do cross country, barking mad. Why would you want to do cross country but she wants to do it… really, we related? But no she wanted to do and so she came down the track and she was training. I was like, okay, we’ll do these little running drills and she’s got the attention span of a cat. It’s just like none. And so you’re like, okay, how do I make this fun? And we’ll do it this way and dress it up different. You lose the skills, but I think it’s important to have them so that you know, how do I do that? How do I break it down? Because you’re going to be faced with a problem and go solve that problem and solve it within 30 seconds otherwise you’re losing. Why I got involved in coaching is to give people an opportunity through sport, can I make you better, can I add value to you as an individual, so on so forth, and even Katie Marchant, who won a bronze medal in Rio, through cycling was an athlete of mine and then you sort of looked at sessions and went, you know, you’re really good on a bike. Yeah. Let me ring them up you fancy, that and then and then, you know, four years, five years later, she’s winning an Olympic medal. I don’t think Katie would mind me saying, I think it’d be incredibly unlikely that she’d have won an Olympic bronze medal in track and field. But she won one in that and you go… take that on what the value of that is and who she is. I mean, it’s testament to her the hard work of not really being a cyclist, but getting on a bike and doing and winning that kind of thing. Those are the things that I find quite satisfying is that you’ve shaped somebody’s future a little bit, nudged them in a direction, then they’ve taken it themselves and gone on further. So adding value to an individual is for me, is why I coach. I mean, I think there’s a Britishness about, there’s a thing, where you’ll not be able to do that there’s always that hesitancy. And I certainly went through a lot of that as a kid that, certainly oh, you’ll never be able to do that. You’ll never have that. Even when I started coaching. You’ll never coach anybody to the highest level because you’ve not been at the highest level. And I’m going, yeah, might be true, actually. But you never know. Oh, you’ll never be able to coach somebody in bobsled, because you’ve never been in a bobsled. Yeah, you’re right. But I can make them fast. And I can do this. Can I do this? Can I do that? You can never coach somebody from the beginning of their athletic career all the way through to Olympic gold medal. Yeah, you might be right on that. But I’d like to see if I can. It’s all of that stuff. People always the I think the Britishness is that you can’t, there’s always a reason that you can’t. Whereas I think through sport, there’s a reason you know, you can, why not?

Ben Ryan 36:33
Some of the listeners would want to then follow up that question is like, why do you think you’ve managed to, and it is almost unique, really taking somebody from their teenage years all the way through their career.

Tony Minichiello 36:45
I think belligerent, being belligerent. I think you just you just work at it. You just like anything, you’re laying it down year on year and stuff. And when my ex wife got involved in Bobsleigh before the Salt Lake Olympics, it was like, What do you think? And I said, I don’t remember saying it. I said, Look, you’re going to be watching TV watching the Winter Olympics, thinking I could have been there. And it’s that why not? Why not have a go? And you sort of, you layer it down year on year and you keep working with people? What Jess has said is that because because there was continued improvement, because it was working well, and she had the opportunity to go to an American college. And certainly at that time, she was thinking shall I go and this and they invited her out to a college and her mum went with her and they were asking me and I went I was kind of a I was torn but I was like oh please don’t go but like go and have a look. And they went they had a look and the facilities were awesome, but they were like actually I’m all right where I am and I’m happy with what I’m doing and came back and then from there just continued on and I think it’s you got to let them you got to let them have those opportunities and do that but you’re just laying it down year on year so people always ask me how when did you know Jessica Ennis would win an Olympic gold medal this kind of thing and I went about 10 minutes before the national anthem was played kind of you really don’t know and I mean you’ve had this… you get a feeling that this is going well and if that plus that two and two will make four and add another two it’s six it’s coming yeah so on and so forth. But I daren’t I’m quite conservative in my approach to things and I daren’t go yeah, we’re easily gonna win.

Ben Ryan 38:27
I’m going to push you a little bit on this because like for me my my easiest two days I had coaching international rugby was the Olympic Games they were they were over competent without being overconfident. And it was a it was a breeze I could have been in the stand having a beer and I know had made myself redundant… now must be a part of you though the night before that you must have thought you know what we’re right here this is all going to be okay.

Tony Minichiello 38:52
I tell you what I was bricking myself at the beginning of the hurdles because you only have to hit one you can go plop yes there’s there’s ten barriers on there that are designed to do that. But you know exactly the same, the Olympic Games in London was the easiest two days coaching in my life. It just kind of it just rolled.

Ben Ryan 39:09
Do you think just because you just put you put so much work into it. You’d really made sure that everything you could control you you could control?

Tony Minichiello 39:16
Yeah, I think it also helped that the the year before, 2011, having got a silver medal, and having cocked up to be honest or not recognised a couple of things made me go for goodness sake reset this, this, this. You’re trying to hard was fundamentally the outcome of it. You’re trying to do more than you really need to do trust the programme do this and that. So we had an opportunity to hit the reset button. That’s what made London I think so easy. I think we had to cock up the year before. So if she’d have won then would that made a difference and that so.

Ben Ryan 39:58
From that failure like we always celebrate our successes, but no one really fully celebrates failure. Often it opens the door to understanding exactly what you need to do to soar. Did you feel that way with the Silver?

Tony Minichiello 40:11
Certainly I remember her going across the warm-up track at the beginning of the first session and I thought this kid is tighter than a drum. She’s over tense and what an earth is this but I don’t want to upset her. So it’s kind of like normally she gets on the track she deals with this thing and as it turned out, she went out there tried too hard she hit the first hurdle, hit hurdle three, hit hurdle nine hit this and just really bruised the knee and all sorts of thing. And then the situation during the high jump very little shade. Korean officials very rigid in their approach to this and even to this day, when when she got the medal, when she got the gold medal through the post, it was like, Oh, great… she knew she’d underperformed and she got the medal she deserved on that day. Okay. And it was that, it wasn’t the fact that she should have beaten Shinova the Russian on that day. But she, this she did this and she messed up the javelin and that she, she got the medal she deserved. She put everything in but made mistakes in certain places. Now that was a good opportunity for us, let’s have a look at this and what you’re trying to do. And then started to get a sight of the amount of pressure that was on and then after London, you sort of realise Christ it was, it was very pressured. But when you’re living in it, it’s like being in the middle of the cyclone. It’s really calm and you think, Oh, no, we’re coping with this it is fine. And then afterwards, you realise, oh, no, there was all that stuff worrying around like crazy.

Ben Ryan 41:48
One other thing that resonated with me a bit about, about the whole journey. When the Olympic final was over for me, about a minute after, I’d given everyone a hug on the field. That was it. Everything was going downhill from there. As a coach, I was I was and it wasn’t about the next thing. I just I was actually like, it was about the journey towards the gold. Now I read somewhere I don’t know if it’s true or not. But after the after the gold for you, everything kind of just you felt well it’s next job now.

Tony Minichiello 42:21
I think it’s 35 or 45 minutes afterwards. There’s like, yeah, for 35 minutes, and it does go three two one and that’s it, then is it right all done? Or what’s next? Where do you go next? What are we going to do? What is the what what how do I how do I top this because I think that’s a coach’s brain from that point of view.

Ben Ryan 42:45
And like I know, it’s it’s not all about medals, but you are a continental, world and an Olympic winning coach. So I guess my final question is, if there’s just one thing that you think is the most important if there’s one golden strand that you would say has, is a non negotiable for you above everything else, and perhaps has given you the the achievements that that you’ve done everything you’ve done, what do you think it is, the one thing?

Tony Minichiello 43:12
I think it’s, it’s the honesty, integrity bit… is that if you certainly as a as a kid growing up, I always… be quiet, know your place, this kind of thing. And I think as an adult, I’m like, no, hold on a minute. If it’s wrong, I’m going to put my hand up, I’m not going to be a bystander watching an old lady get mugged across the road, I’m going to say Oh, hold on a minute. This this sort of thing. So that the the what I’ve got in one of my notebooks is the Pastor Martin Niemöller poem, which is the first came for the communists, but I wasn’t a communist. So I said nothing, this kind of thing. And then the final part is that then they came for me, and there was nobody to speak for me. And that resonates with me massively. And I get a bit emotional when I read that stuff. And you sort of go that for me, that from a personal point of view is the thing that, you know, stand up for those kinds of things. And I know you know, my dad, my mum and dad as immigrants in this country and my dad’s died now he’s buried here, but you can’t have you know what they went through tough times. I remember getting kicked to bits at a bus stop because somebody thought it was Pakistani. And you sort of while I’m getting kicked, I was like, I’m trying to explain to them that I’m Italian. Why I don’t know just stand up, you’re nine stand up. You don’t need to take the kicking just tell him but and this kind of thing. So you do the you know, you go through that stuff, but it’s like no, just try and add value to people. But the one strand I would say is that you’re never a finished article. And that’s the other thing is always learning, always reading, always understanding, always growing and trying to help. By doing that, then you can help the people that you’re trying to help. So there’s the two things really.

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