The Victorian Race Walk Academy

Proposal to set up a Victorian based High Performance Centre for Racewalking

1. Summary

This submission from Tim Erickson and proposes the development of a training and development centre for racewalking, based in Middle Park and run under the auspices of the Victorian Race Walking Club.

A VRWC High Performance arm would provide support for racewalk athletes and coaches in Victoria, to ensure the long term continuance of Victorian Race Walking success and the State's ongoing contribution to Australia’s international teams. This would complement VRWC's broad participation base and further the efforts of VRWC members to promote the sport of walking in the State.

Melbourne is the natural home of such a High Performance Centre for Race Walking:

 Victoria consistently produces the majority of Australia’s elite race walkers and provides many of the walkers who are selected in senior and underage teams  Much of the developing talent in racewalking is found in Victoria, and most of that pool is Melbourne based  The coaching and competition base in Victoria is Australia’s best  There is a history of VRWC supported training camps and training support  Melbourne based facilities and support infrastructure (VIS, track and field, sports science and medicine) are equal to the best in Australia

While it is hoped this High Performance Centre can become in time a facility for nurturing and supporting talented walkers destined to represent the Club and the country, for the moment it will remain nominally an unfunded training group affiliated with the Club. Alliances with AV and VIS will be sought through promoting the mutual benefits from association with its successes. This should benefit the club through wider promotion of its aims and achievements in the athletic community.

As membership of the Academy is a privilege and should not be without its responsibilities, this membership must be selective, must be subject to review, and must come with the obligation to participate and represent VRWC at interstate, state and Federation events.

2. The proposal - a Melbourne based Race Walk Academy

The Victorian Race Walking Club (VRWC) is well placed to support the development of a Melbourne based Racewalking High Performance Centre, namely the Victorian Race Walk Academy. This academy would provide

 Support for current elite Victorian walkers  Support for targeted developmental athletes  Support for elite and developmental personal coaches  Regular group training sessions in a variety of venues around Melbourne  Public Liability protection for those working within the Academy structure.

Initially, the scope might be minimal, offering the recognition of being a member, along with some gear and the chance for regular training sessions. It may be possible to use the VRWC clubrooms as a training centre, pending a more mature alignment with AV/VIS/AA. Other regular training sessions are envisaged at venues such as 'The Tan' and Jells Park.

For all its strength, we recognize that VRWC is not a perfect fit for a potential high performance centre:

 It does not have access to any High Performance facilities (gymnasiums, altitude training, recovery facilities, sports science and sports medicine).  It does not have access to high quality physiotherapy and massage.  There are no paid staff, coaches operate on their own and mostly unpaid for their efforts, and its ongoing operation is premised on unpaid volunteers.

However, even though these shortcomings are acknowledged, we recognize the urgent need to act now to fill the current gap and ensure that Victoria continues to be a production line that nurtures quality walkers. 3. Target Members

The Victorian Race Walk Academy would offer support to both elite and developmental coaches as well as to senior elite, senior transitional and junior walkers. Considering the current athletes and coaches involved as members of VRWC, a potential High Performance squad members list might read as follows.

Coaching Senior (Open) Junior and Development

Elite Coaches Senior Elite Walkers Junior Simon Baker Chris Erickson (Olympic) (AA International teams 2015-16) Brent Vallance (Olympic) Adam Garganis Megan Szirom Regan Lamble (Olympic) Kyle Swan Tim Erickson Alana Barber (NZ) (Olympic) Tayla Billington Mark Donahoo Quentin Rew (NZ) (Olympic) Jemima Montag Michael Hosking (Senior Team) Juniors National Link/ Developmental Senior Transitional (AV Vic TTP) Coaches Simone McInnes Emmet Brasier Frances Attard Eliza Clarke Matt Owen Shae Wellington Elie Raselli Ralph Bennett Developmental Jenni Billington (AV Vic TTP) and U16-U17 Paul Rance Philippa Huse Daryl Biggin Rebecca Henderson Reese Walmsley Jemma Peart (Ballarat) Zahra Hayes (Bendigo)

Some of the current Olympic standard athletes are currently supported through AA and VIS as part of the AA National Athlete Support Scheme (NASS) program. This may well complement the program envisaged in the Victorian Race Walk Academy.

4. Governance

In order to support the Academy, a committee of governance is proposed, consisting of representatives of the coaches at the club, that would be responsible for managing administrative affairs, liaising with AV and VIS and overseeing the selection and support of athletes. This board would report regularly to the VRWC management committee.

5. What are the Next Steps

 Discussions with VRWC Committee to seek their support and to further tease out the way in which such an Academy might function  Clarification of the type and level of support the Academy be able to offer or enlist  Roles and responsibilities  Wider distribution of this document to other key stakeholders (in VRWC)  Invitation to coaches to meet for their feedback and ideas  Formal implementation of concept  Review of funding sources – potential grants and awards from State and Federal sources  Eventual submission to AV Board for potential alignment and endorsement.

Sincerely

Simon Baker (Level 5 Coach) Tim Erickson (Level 4 Coach)

13 July 2016 Appendix

Racewalking - the Australian Track & Field Powerhouse

Racewalking has been a significant contributor to Australian Athletics success over the last 30 years. Since the early 1980s, Australia has consistently produced racewalk medallists, Top-8 performances and IAAF “A” qualified athletes at World Championships and Olympics. Further, racewalking has typically been one of the largest event groups in any international team.

The AIS Factor

There are a number of factors that have contributed to this in Victoria, including a strong culture of race walking in Melbourne, based at the VRWC, and the significant contribution of the regional clubs in Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo.

However while these clubs and the other interstate specialist racewalking clubs are indispensible to nurturing talent, the major contributor in producing international standard walkers was a centralised program based at the AIS. The AIS provided a significant contribution to the walks program through delivering:

 A training centre for scholarship and non-scholarship athletes to train in a supportive and competitive environment  A development pathway for some elite junior race walkers  High performance camps based in Thredbo or Canberra funded from research projects  Regular camps in conjunction with the HP camps for promising junior athletes  Sport Science support services for elite walkers in the various States  A professional coaching staff.

Over much of the last 30 years there have nearly always been two or more World Top-16 standard walkers in the country. This peaked in the early 2000's with the advent of a development program, run by Brent Vallance and based at the AIS. This resulted in the largest concurrent number of A and B qualified race walkers, both male and female, that has ever been seen in Australia.

Over the this entire period, Victoria was a major source of racewalking talent for the AIS and for Australia. The honour list of Victorian AIS walkers reads like a Who's Who of the discipline

Sue Cook Melbourne 1981-1987 Melbourne 1993-2000 Anne Miller Melbourne 1982-1983 Bendigo 1996-1999 Dave Smith Melbourne 1984-1988 Geelong 1997-2012 Michael Harvey Melbourne 1985 Ballarat 2004-2012 Simon Baker Melbourne 1985-1994 Kellie Wapshott Melbourne 2006-2010 Melbourne 1988-1993 Chris Erickson Melbourne 2007-2012 Paul Copeland Melbourne 1989-1990 Regan Lamble Melbourne 2009-2012 Steve Beecroft Melbourne 1991 Jess Rothwell Bendigo 2010-2012 Gabrielle Blythe Geelong 1991-1993 Rachel Tallent Ballarat 2011-2012

With the demise of the AIS scholarship program in late 2012, this developmental tap was turned off. For the moment, the long term effect is masked, as the likes of Jared Tallent, Chris Erickson, Regan Lamble, etc, continue to compete and continue to rank highly in the world. But eventually they will retire. The big question is how do we ensure that the next generation of walkers can follow in their footsteps and reach the same level of excellence.

The Racewalking Landscape Post 2012

Australia's elite walkers are now spread across a number of Australian cities - Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane, Sydney and Adelaide - and the opportunities for group training are severely limited. The absence of centralised training and camp programs limit opportunity and incentive for Youth and Junior progression.

State Institutes target current internationals but provide nothing in the way of a pathway to enable aspiring younger athletes to reach the required senior elite standard.

The Victorian Race Walk Academy is intended to help plug this gap.

Since the demise of the AIS Scholarship Program in 2012, Victorian and Australian walkers have lacked a developmental pathway to transition from talented juniors to elite seniors:

 AA funding targets athletes already at International Standard with only one athlete brought in as a developing talent (Nathan Brill)  VIS support focuses on top 8/16 standard senior athletes  AIS residential camps (both in Canberra and at Thredbo) are no longer held  No funded racewalk coaching opportunities exist in Victoria.

As a consequence of these changes, younger walkers identified from the A.A. Performance Matrix will in future face significant blocks to progress to elite senior ranks and are less likely to achieve their athletic potential.

Further, while Victoria has an abundance of highly qualified and successful walks coaches, both elite and developmental, they get no support from AA , AV or VIS but are forced to work as self-funded individuals.

A High Performance Centre for Race Walking (hereafter known as the Victorian Race Walking Academy) seeks to address some of these issues.