24 coaches set for IAAF Level One upgrade

By Treiston Joseph

Twenty-four (24) track and field coaches will have the opportunity to become Level One certified International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) coaches after the Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG) commenced the course on Thursday at the National Resource Centre, Woolford Avenue.

It is being conducted by IAAF Lecturer, Oscar Gadea, of Uruguay and IAAF Instructor, Raymond Gilson, of Suriname. Speaking at the opening, President of the Guyana Olympic Association (GOA), K.A. Juman Yassin, delivered his charge to the two dozen coaches.

“Sometimes coaches are giving more importance to athletes than even their family members. You have the responsibility of mentoring, of trying to instill discipline, of trying to ensure that that the young athlete takes his or her education, you have to ensure that that young person has confidence and desire, you have to be able to develop dreams of that athlete, the dream to see that athlete on the podium, the dream to see that athlete as a winner and not as a participant, you have a very important part to play,” Yassin explained.

He added, “I will give the charge to all of you to be good students, but more importantly after you complete this course you will be able to put into practical practice what you have learnt.”

Meanwhile, Gadea noted that the Level One coaching course was recently restructured and it is the first since it restructuring to happen in South America. He shared his opinion of the athletes from this region.

“I would like to add just one more responsibility to what our friend from the Olympic Association mentioned, all of them [Yassin’s points] were outstanding, but I would like to add one more… you are working with the most talented athletes in the world, have no doubt about that,” Gadea reckoned.

He continued, “The most talented athletes in the world are in the area of the Caribbean, some parts of Central America and the North part of South America… Suriname, Guyana, Venezuela, Columbia and some regions from Ecuador have the most talented athletes in the world; you can only find that level of talent in Africa, in some regions of Africa… so besides all what we mentioned and what you heard already just to add one more, you are responsible to help your athletes fulfill their potential, you the coaches are responsible for that too.”

President of the AAG, Aubrey Hutson, believes that the coaching course will only augur well for the future of athletics.

“We got at least 24 coaches new coaches that we are hoping to have certified in the next 12 days and then we could quickly look for another 24 because we had over 54 applicants for this course, but we want a lot more certified coaches especially in our school system and out regions. We want them to be certified so that can know how to deal with our athletes in terms of what to do when and it’s not just go out there and run and when there is competition throw them out there,” Hutson shared.

He added, “There is a bigger plan towards developing athletes and we want all the participants here to have that knowledge, so with that kind of knowledge in the society as a whole we should have better competition and really and truly produce better world champions.”

This is the third IAAF course to be done since the restructuring. It will contain both practical and theoretical assessments, and will end on January 30.