Posts Tagged ‘Boxing’
Not another Academy of Sport…..aaaaargh!
- Academy of Sport?
- Institute of Sport?
- Elite Sports Academy?
- Centre of Excellence?
- High Performance Centre?
Call it what you will - it’s the same thing.
Why this world wide obsession with Academies / Institutes and Centres?
And more importantly, do they actually make a difference to the performance of elite athletes?
October 13, 2008 | 4 Comments
Tags: American Football, Athletics, Baseball, Basketball, Boxing, Cricket, Cycling, Diving, Equestrian, Football, Gymnastics, Hockey, Judo, Netball, Rowing, Soccer, Swimming, Track and Field, Triathlon
Coach driven, Athlete Focused, Administratively supported? Isn’t it time we did something different?
Thanks for visiting the Brain today while doing your daily web surfing.
While you are in the surfing mood, go and check out some other sporting web sites.
Specifically check out the web sites of the funding agenices, Institutes and Academies of the major Olympics sporting nations.
You will see something like this - on ALL sites:
“Our philosophy is to embrace an athlete centred, coach driven and administratively supported high performance environment”.
This is a fantastic philosophy……….for about 1993.
Isn’t it time we did something different?
October 1, 2008 | 1 Comment
Tags: Athletics, Baseball, Basketball, Boxing, Cycling, Diving, Equestrian, Football, Gymnastics, Hockey, Netball, Soccer, Softball, Swimming, Track and Field, Triathlon
Message to the Sporting World - Do it your own way!
OK - the Olympics have finished.
Now comes the “GAMES”…………the junkets and fact finding missions the Sporting leaders from most countries are about to embark on to find out what the USA, Germany, Great Britain, South Korea, China and Australia are doing to be successful in the Olympics.
The logic seems simple enough.
“Our country didn’t win any medals at the Olympics” says the Minister for Sport.
“Country XYZ won lots of medals at the Olympics”, says the CEO of the Sports Commission.
“Therefore if we want medals and we copy them we will win medals”, thinks everyone in the room.
“Hooray!!!! Problem solved - let’s buy some air tickets”.
Seems like common sense.
Waste of time.
Waste of money.
Waste of energy.
If the past has taught us one thing it is that high performance systems, structures and models do not work outside of the culture that created them.
September 3, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Tags: Athletics, Baseball, Basketball, Beijing Olympic Games, Boxing, Cycling, Diving, Equestrian, Gymnastics, Hockey, Judo, Olympics, Rowing, Sailing, Softball, Swimming, Tennis, Track and Field, Triathlon
Beijing Blast Number Five: 10 things to include in your Beijing Review
So Beijing 2008 is over.
Now is the time to start planning to win in London 2012.
Or World Championships 2009.
Or Commonwealth Games 2010.
Or the next World Cup.
All sports in all nations will do some sort of Beijing Performance Review in coming months.
Some will do it well - many will just do it as a “tick the box - we have to do a review” exercise.
How many athletes, coaches and support staff will actually use the review process as an opportunity to improve their performances in future major competitions?
How many will just see the review as a pointless waste of time enforced on them by the Funding Agencies or the Board?
So what are the 10 most important things to include in any Beijing review?
Reviews are critical in assessing three key things:
What did you do that WORKED - WENT WELL?
What did you do that didn’t WORK - WENT BADLY?
What did you learn and you can introduce to improve your performance NEXT TIME?
A good review asks questions - the trick is in knowing what questions to ask, why to ask them and who to ask.
Even more importantly, is knowing what to do with the answers to those questions.
August 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Tags: Athletics, Baseball, Basketball, Beijing Olympic Games, Boxing, Cycling, Diving, Equestrian, Gymnastics, Hockey, Olympic Games, Olympics, Rowing, Sailing, Swimming, Track and Field, Triathlon
Beijing Blast Number Four: Beijing 2008 is already over - and London 2012 is closer than you think.
Well, let’s hope you enjoyed the spectacular Opening Ceremony because the Beijing 2008 Olympics is already over.
And London 2012 is closer than you think.
August 9, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Tags: Athletics, Baseball, Basketball, Beijing Olympic Games, Boxing, Cycling, Diving, Equestrian, Football, Hockey, Olympics, Rowing, Soccer, Softball, Swimming, Tennis, Track and Field, Triathlon, Wrestling
Beijing Blast Number Three: Why the London 2012 Olympics will be Tougher to win than the Beijing 2008 Olympics
So you think winning Gold at the 2008 Beijing Olympics is tough?
London 2012 will be much, much tougher.
Why?
August 6, 2008 | 1 Comment
Tags: Athletics, Baseball, Basketball, Beijing Olympic Games, Boxing, Cycling, Diving, Equestrian, Football, Hockey, Olympics, Rowing, Soccer, Softball, Swimming, Track and Field, Triathlon, Wrestling
Beijing Blast Number Two - Top Five Reasons Olympic Athletes Take Drugs
They don’t call it Doping for nothing - because only DOPES do it.
With the overnight announcement of the IAAF banning of several of Russia’s leading female distance runners - including current and previous world champions - let’s have a look at the top five reasons why Olympic Athletes take drugs.
August 2, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Tags: Athletics, Baseball, Basketball, Beijing Olympic Games, Boxing, Cycling, Diving, Equestrian, Football, Hockey, Olympics, Rowing, Soccer, Softball, Swimming, Track and Field, Triathlon, Wrestling
Beijing Blast Number One - Five really dumb things most athletes heading to Beijing would have done in the past six months
Lots of athletes go to the Olympics - very, very few come back with a medal.
Why?
Lack of Talent? Unlikely.
Poor Skill? Possibly.
The wrong parents, i.e. Genetics? Could be.
But the reason most of them don’t win a medal is that they made five dumb mistakes in the past six months.
July 31, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Tags: Athletics, Baseball, Basketball, Beijing Olympic Games, Boxing, Cycling, Diving, Equestrian, Football, Hockey, Olympics, Rowing, Softball, Swimming, Track and Field, Triathlon, Wrestling
Beijing Blast - the inside story of the 2008 Olympic Games
Welcome to the BEIJING BLAST.
For the next month, check out the great new posts about the issues and inspirations, medals and mayhem, records and ruin, controversies and criticisms, struggles and successes, fantastic feats and failures, trouble, tragedy, triumph, tears and turmoil that is the Olympic Games.
Forget the media blackout in China.
Hear it here - at the BEIJING BLAST.
Want the real inside story?
Read it here at the BEIJING BLAST.
Get with the BLAST - or hear about it………LAST!
Beijing Blast number one - coming soon.
Wayne Goldsmith
July 31, 2008 | 1 Comment
Tags: Athletics, Baseball, Basketball, Boxing, Cycling, Diving, Equestrian, Gymnastics, Hockey, Olympics, Rowing, Swimming, Track and Field, Triathlon, Wrestling
Why Bench - marking is a waste of time in High Performance Sport.
Benchmarking.
It has become one of the Buzz words in high performance sport.
Benchmarking means that someone in an organisation decides to find out what the best people in the industry are doing, learn from them and usually copy what they are doing.
For example, coaches in professional football codes will sometimes visit successful programs in other codes - maybe even in other nations - to try and learn what they do and how they became successful.
Institutes and Academies of Sport and Government sporting authorities often send people to other countries to benchmark systems, structures, programs and innovations.
It seems like a good idea. Travel to see another program, get some instant solutions to problems and some new ideas to help enhance performance - seems like a great idea.
However…………..
- It’s a waste of time
- It’s a waste of money
- Even if you have the time and the money it doesn’t work.

