Ghost1 wrote:
Orcas: JS’s contact with the Italian runner was in the very early years when the Italian was just 18 or 19 years old so I don’t think any harm was done because at the time it was just an exchange of emails or messages and that was well before the time that he had his other coaches, Perrone (?) and then Baldini.
Pietro was with Perrone since 2012. This conversation is from 2017.
Baldini became his coach in 2020.
In any case, I am not going to be a moralist here. To me this is not proper behavior but it happens every day in all sports.
Ghost1 wrote:
[quote]Orcas wrote:
[quote]Ghost1 wrote:
+1, this is fascinating stuff and thank you for posting. We will continue to follow the career of Pietro Riva, whom you may have influenced, with interest from now on.
fascinating indeed how Jan tried to "steal" the athlete from his coach ;)
SUPERIOR COACH JS wrote:
The curious thing I find, and I stand corrected if I’m wrong, is that the Swedish guru appears to prefer coaching virtually rather than in person. But this is his choice and we cannot fault him but I still think there’s a disadvantage in coaching virtually compared with coaching in the flesh and on site when many things become more apparent and the coaching becomes more valuable as a result. The Italians who coach the top Kenyans therefore reside in Kenya which is not the most comfortable place in the world to live, but they do this out of necessity because they can monitor their athletes on a quasi-permanent basis.
This is another subject I have talked about on Jan's thread but he just ignored my lengthy posts.
Obviously one can't really expect someone to move to give up their job and move to Kenya at the age of 61. But by keeping things online Jan will miss out on invaluable opportunities to follow his athletes and to recruit more.
What I think he is doing wrong is not looking for local talent in his region in Sweden. He has said he wants to be famous as a coach in a short time but it seems like he could, at the same time, spend a couple of hours a week at the local track, instead of on Letsrun, working with a few local kids, trying to develop them.
But he seems to think coaching Kenyans (or other nationalities as long as already elite, developed runners) online is his quick path to fame.
Ghost1 wrote:
If Coach Js ever decides to do this he might have some future world beaters on his books. I actually find his training programs that I’ve seen lately (posted with Riva in mind)quite sensible/well constructed and not as bare-bones as some would imply. Those with more expertise in coaching will probably see this remark as being without foundation. What I meant to say though is that there’s such talent in East Africa that even with a bare-bones DANCAN system , JS would be able to produce some very very good runners. 28:00/1:00:00 type runners, I think. For the marathon, I still think his program needs tweaking, his overall ideas appear to be sound and sensible and can produce results.
I agree with you 100%.
It would be difficult for a reasonably competent coach not to be able to develop a bunch of Kenyan athletes into the 28:xx-60.xx range.
Jan's specific workouts are OK. Opinions may differ but in general his workouts seem to be OK.
But his athletes' results in the marathon seem to indicate that his stubbornness in adhering to "low mileage" for everyone may be hindering their results.
Anyway.
I don't like these tactics of trying to steal an athlete who has been working (and very well) with a coach but what can I do? I don't like doping either and thousands of athletes and coaches do it.