Men's 10,000m European Cup race in Antalya, Turkey on 14 April (© Peter Thompson)
MonteOn the occasion of the 10,000m European Cup in Antalya, Turkey on 14 April, the IAAF, with the support of the EAA, organised a workshop with the title “Raising the Standards of European Distance Running”.
Its intention was to discuss and elaborate the problems that Europe has in trying to catch up with the continuous success of African runners in nearly all distance events. Workshop organiser Harald Muller (IAAF Member Services Department) was pleasantly surprised about the high number of participants, and with more than 60 interested coaches from several European Member Federations, the expectations of the EAA and IAAF were high.
Three speakers were invited to present their views on this matter.
Robert Hartmann (GER), one of the most competent and experienced sport journalists in Germany, who has a vast knowledge of Kenya and it’s distance running scene since the early 1970s, opened the workshop with a presentation on the psychological, environmental and social conditions under which the Kenyan runners developed their extraordinary success.
The second speaker was one of the most successful coaches in distance running, Renato Canova (ITA), who used to be an Italian national middle and long distance coach and now advises this weekend's Boston Marathon winner Rita Jeptoo as well as IAAF World Ranked number one steeplechasers Saif Saaed Shaheen (QAT) and Dorcus Inzikuru (UGA) who are both the current World champions.
Canova stressed in his presentation that it is not a problem of Europeans being less talented but that there is a fundamental problem for European runners and coaches in training methodology and motivation. He gave an overview of his experiences with some of the most successful runners and how he had structured their training and adjusted training loads.
The third speaker was Peter Thompson (GBR). His presentation focused on the statistical analysis of European distance running in the years 2000 to 2005. He pointed out that in some events the Europeans had indeed lost contact with other elite runners, but in others, the situation was still hopeful for Europe. He completed his lecture with some thoughts on a modernised interval system which has been successfully applied in training.
The IAAF would like to continue its support for European middle/long distance runners by organising a Training Camp in Eldoret , Kenya, in early 2007, for a selected group of athletes.
IAAF
