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ffi .# 'rffi jrt Speed skating aside, and back best Oly,rnpic spons. Our champions E1don, a former triple jumper, in in Holland, Van Commenee went * Mary Peters, Daley Thompson, Berkshire. Sheffreld-based Ennis-Hill about identi{.ing the medal potential Denise Lewis and Jessica Ennis-Hil1 (whose training ground was in combined events (heptathlon - have all made an impact outside of demolished last year) funds her and decathlon); Dutch kids are the sport as well as in it. Incredible longtime coach Toni Minichello after required to compete across discipiines athletes, national heroes. But there is he was sacked by British Athletics in school, which means there is always no clear pattern to their success. rn 2073. Johnson-Thompson, under a decent talent base to work from. But As reponed in these pages before, the tutelage of respected Liverpool that was about all they had. Rio 2016 has the potential for a triple Harriers coach Mike Holmes (a1so "We started ten years ago. First whammy, as sends GB two world Can Nadine Visser the club statistician and sometime of all, physically building the narional class heptathletes (top) out to compete - emulate Jess President), queues up every Saturday Ennis-Hill's centre in Papendal, near Arnhem. reigning Olirmpic andworld champ success in the heptathlon? to use the municipal faciliry. I allocated funds at the tlme - in 2005 Ennis-Hi1l, 29 [who was interviewed "But she doesn't have to,,, van - to build a specilic building, with in FS July 2015], and last year,s world Commenee points out. "These athletes indoor track and g1,rn, for a number of number one Katarina Johnson- would be welcome in Loughborough sports. We also ailocated funding to Thompson,22 (FSMay2015) and o - flat the High Performance Athletics appoint coaches. I tru1y believe that one with enormous potential, world Centre], but they decide not to go. F you have to invest in coaches before junior champion Morgan (FS F Lake, 18 "There happens to have been o you can ex?ect athletes to excel.,' f December 2014). talented athleres who walk into L In Britain, it's a totally different We ask van Commenee, a man a dedicated, capable coach. And scenario. Multi-eventing is one of our uniquely 9 placed to answer, why he that combination works." thinks the British k have become so Meanwhlle, their Dutch rivals, for a good o at heptathlon. so long in the shadows, F 'ATHLETICS are working o "Coincidence," he says. ',There is = in a very different way. z very 1ittle communication between the o The Netherlands went 29 years F IN HOLLAND coaches [in Britain]. There,s no and 21 major championships without I reason for it o IS LIKE SPEED to continue. I,m not a heptathion medal before Dafne saying it is going to stop. But there,s Schippers won world bronze at no pipeline, no conveyor be1t.,, Moscow @ SI{ATING 2013. Since then, Schippers o HERE" He's right. o Ours is a fragmented got remarkably quick and changed her system. Lake is coached by her dad focus to sprinting. At Beijing 2015, 38 Foreversports.com she won 100m silver and 200m go1d. ''I This season finished with three SEE NO Dutch heptathletes in the world's top ten rankings: world indoor REASO/V FOR pentathlon champion Nadine Broersen, 25, plus 2O-year-old Nadine IBRITAI/VS Visser and 221ear-old Anouk Vetter. SUCCESSJ A11 three are based fuil-time at Papendal, as is Schippers. They eat, TO CONTINUE" drink coffee, train and live in each other's pockets, with access to a community of world-c1ass coaches. With the Dutch on the up and help explain Visser's accelerated up, then, FS meets Visser, a child of development over the last trvo years. van Commenee's athletics factory. We A 12 per cent improvement in two are in Talence, a suburb ofBordeaux, years ranks favourably against other where she is competing in her flnal young athletes who have gone on to heptathlon of the season. smash records andwin medals. We're bathed in surprise autumn She describes the high-tech, sunshine, a fltting glow in which to all-weather set-up in Papendal as talk about 2015. Visser has performed "perfect for me". This winter, with her brilliantly and van Commenee, more lead coach Bart Bennema (who also than just in an administrative capacity, coaches Schippers), she will continue has been able to "reap the harvest" to work through a weights programme of his Papendal project. that has alreadyyielded results in Visser, who won bronze medals in terms ofspeed and strength. In search the heptathlon and 100m hurdles in of technical improvement in specific the worldjunior ranks last year, set events, though, they have enlisted the a massive heptathlon PB in Mayto help of an all-star cast. qualiff for the senior world champs in 'IMe worked togetherwith Charles Beijing, where she finished eighth. van Commenee and Rana Reider [the It's a big leap from junior to senior, former British Athletics relay coachl . though, and in the heptathlon the I think that's a good thing about my gap is widened by a factor of seven. coach. It's not like he wants to do So while eighth might not seem too everythingbyhimself. He knows that impressive, it is for an athlete her age. some events he can coach better than She is only the founh under the age of others. In the events he linows 1ess, he 21 to achieve a top-eight finish in the tries to flnd someone who can he1p." history of the sport, following in the In van Commenee and Reider, footsteps of Johnson-Thompson in they've got tvvo of the world's leading 2013 and three-time world champ authorities in throwing, jumping and Carolina Kluft in 2003. sprint hurdles. Above: CVC has about the scale ofthe challenge. been at the But was she happy with it? Visser also talks warmly about "I don't see the Orange Army as a forefront of "I was pleased with my eighth place, a collegiate approach to winter athletics coaching serious threat 1o British dominance yeah," she says. "The flrst daywas training that would be pretty alien for the past two in the heptathlon yet. But after Rio? decades really good: PBs in the hurdles and to her British counterpafts. Possibly. We're knocking on the door. high jump. But on day two, my long "ln Apri1, we did a training camp in Below: Vetter, "For Rio, there are three athletes jump was 30cm behind my PB so Fiorida, like last year. It was the whole Broersen and who stand out - Ennis-Hil1, Johnson- Visser are ranked Thompson and Brianne Theisen-Eaton I was rea1ly disappointed after that." Dutch team. Last year, we were only 8th,4th and 7th Her dissatisfaction provides an with our training group. But we liked in the world [from Canada] shouldwin medals. respectively interesting insight into the mind of a it, so other athletes came this year. And we are happy to jump in if one heptathlete. You've got seven chances "It's nice to make your dreams come messes upl to beat yourself up, and a mild failure true with everyone aroundyou." "The gap at this point is too wide in one can mean so much more than It is this approach van Commenee to expect Dutch athletes to challenge. two or three fantastic results. tried to introduce during his tenure at Possibly the year after, but they're "You should co-operate with British Athletics. It both struggled for a little out of reach right now." disappointment," is Visser's somewhat funding (Rover sponsored a multi- "I'm personallyveryhappy. I feel poetic mantra for multi-eventing. event academybut it went bust in connected with British Athletics, The abi1iry to rationalise your own 2005), and athlete co-operation. and myhearr is in combined events. performance is perhaps a benefit of The difference in Ho1land, he says, I supported them as much as I could, growing up in an athletics factory. is that'1re work together better". so I'm a happy man. I'd be happy It is the qua1iry ofher five-days-a- Van Commenee is certain that his to see Britain and Holiand be week of training that might way is right. But he's also realistic dominant natlons in heptathlon." El ForeverSports 39.