Athletics: Adams parts with Poppe

Poppe and Adams. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Olympic and world champion shot putter Valerie Adams is set to part company with new coach Didier Poppe in the next few weeks.

He will be the second coach she has split from in the past eight months, after parting with long-time mentor Kirsten Hellier in March.

Assuming certain logistical details are ironed out, Poppe will be replaced by Swiss Jean-Pierre Egger, with whom Adams trained with briefly in Switzerland earlier this year before her standout performance of the year in Croatia.

Previously, as she worked through Poppe's change programme, she had consistently finished second to long-time rival Nadzeya Ostapchuk, of Belorussia.

After working with Werner Gunthor, winner of three world championships between 1987 and 1993, and Jean-Pierre Egger, Adams threw 20.86m to beat Ostapchuk for the first time in an age.

Her manager Nick Cowan said while Adams and Poppe had plenty of healthy "rigorous" debate, there had been some issues between the two. The Frenchman had undertaken a radical re-shaping of Adams' technique that he likened to turning a truck into a Ferrari.

"There have been some differences of opinion [going back to April] this year," said Cowan, "a degree of which is normal between an athlete and a coach. The main thing is that at the end of next year, we need to be looking at London and saying, 'yes, we are on track.'

"There will be one technical head coach [in 2011] and our desire is for that to be Jean-Pierre," confirmed Cowan.

Adams was 'buzzing' after her brief training camp in Switzerland and that is understood to have created the strong impetus for change. While Cowan is quick to stress that she is not "disappearing", Adams will spend "months rather than weeks" in Europe next year.

"She rang me [after the camp] and said 'I have to do this again, I have to do it next year and I have to do it for more time'," said Cowan.

"The connection she made with Jean-Pierre and the areas that he focused on really gave her confidence and re-ignited her competitive resolve to perform the way she did.

"Our main focus is ensuring that we capture that again. "

There is a slim chance that Poppe could still be involved.

"There will be one technical head coach," said Cowan. "You have to be careful with too much input. Everybody in her team agrees that it is very difficult to have two coaches."

It is expected that strength and conditioning expert Matt Kritz and power coach Mike McGuigan will remain part of the new set-up.

Together with Athletics New Zealand and her management team, Adams has been undertaking a review of the past year to look at what went well and what didn't. At the same time Adams has had to put most of her energy and focus into working through her marriage separation which has significantly "slowed things down" and made the change process harder.

Cowan adds that to some degree 2010 was the right time for a few things to go wrong.

"We did the experimenting in a year where we could get away with it," says Cowan. "Last year she was quite prepared to try a few things out but lately she has been pretty clear that this has got to be sorted.

"She is very ready for next year; she is in the right head space and is totally sorted with how it all needs to roll out."