NEWS

Asian Junior Camp Report

By World Triathlon Admin | 14 Jul, 2005

Brett Mace, Manager, Athlete & Coach Development Program writes: To all Asian Triathlon Federations, thank you for the support for the recently held ITU Asian Junior Development Camp in Singapore.

The 17 athletes from the 6 NF’s that attended the Camp were not only fine representatives and ambassadors of your country, but also the sport of Triathlon.

On behalf of all our ITU Team in Singapore, Kristine Chambers and I (ITU’s Sport Development Team) would like to say that each one of the athletes were a pleasure to work with and we all enjoyed the experience of working with a group of young, motivated, emerging athletes.

The athletes were respectful, co-operative and willing to learn and listen, but most importantly they were motivated to improve themselves not only as athletes, but also as young people.

ITU was fortunate enough to have the services of Miles Browning, one of Australia’s and indeed the one of the world’s leading coaches, along with Emma Carney the most successful ITU Athlete ever with 21 World Cup victories and 2 World Championships working closely with the athletes.

I am sure these experiences will stay with the athletes for a long time and what they learnt from Miles and Emma will assist them greatly in the future.

We at ITU look forward to a long and successful relationship with Miles and Emma in the future as we develop our Program particularly in Asia, that will see a stronger and greater presence of Asian athletes at the Olympics and World Championships in the coming years.

While at this Camp, the athletes and the staff had a wonderful opportunity to get a close up view of the workings of sport at the highest level when we visited the IOC Hotel at Raffles and the 117th IOC Session which announced London as the successful bid to host the 2012 Olympics.

Guided by ITU President Les McDonald and Secretary General Bill Walker, the athletes learnt about the Olympic movement and met a number of IOC Members including legendary runner and Olympic Gold Medalist Kip Keino and several other Olympic Gold Medalists.

This visit at this time was particularly poignant given that a number of the athletes attending the camp openly expressed the desire to part of the 2012 Olympics in London.

During the Camp, we identified a number of athletes who we believe have the ability both physically and mentally to be able to qualify for future World Championships and indeed the Olympics.

However it was evident to the ITU Team at the Camp that these athletes while having the ability and talent, are still some way off in their preparation and fitness levels.

This I believe is where the ITU Sports Development Program will be able to assist with our Coaching Development Program and we look forward to working with you on this in the future.

Miles and Emma are now compiling a comprehensive report on all the athletes and this will be sent to each Federation with the information on their athlete.

In relation to those athletes we have identified, I will contact each Federation individually to discuss each individual’s circumstances and their inclusion and further participation in our ITU Athlete Development Program.

Once again thank you for your support and if you have any enquiries about our ITU Athlete and Coaches Programs or further questions on the athletes or the camp I will be more than happy to answer.

I look forward to working closely with you all in the future.