Canoeing: Exiled coach Ferguson is suddenly a wanted man

Ian and Steven Ferguson. Photo / Kenny Rodger

New Zealand's Olympian Of The Century, Ian Ferguson, has declined to share with Canoe Racing NZ the reasons behind his son's recent burst of form.

Ferguson, our most decorated Olympic athlete; named Olympian of the Century in 2006 by the NZ Olympic Association, was recently dumped as a coach along with fellow Olympian Paul MacDonald. That led to accusations of a campaign to oust them by CRNZ's Sparc-appointed executive, including CEO Paula Kearns and high-performance manager Wayne Maher.

At last weekend's national regatta, Steven Ferguson, coached by Ian outside official CRNZ coaching, dominated results, winning both K1 and K2 races in blistering times.

In an email sent on Friday, Maher said all national squad members not training as part of that squad in Auckland must submit their training programme for regular review and feedback.

Ian Ferguson said yesterday: "It's a little strange. First, I'm fired because my training programmes are supposed to be useless and out of date.

"Next Stevo smashes the second regatta in world class times while in the middle of a huge paddling base. Wayne goes: 'Hello, what is Stevo doing that has made him improve so much? ... make him share his programmes with us and we can see what he is doing. Maybe we can work out how to beat him. I will show Ben [Fouhy] and his coach the programmes.'

"These are my personal programmes that I spend hours working on, yet they were so useless to Wayne, I lost my job.

"I spent many days visiting Arthur Lydiard as one of his understudies. He gave me sport science from the sports book of life. That includes mentoring, motivating, understanding and being proud of my athletes.

"Now that the bad eggs have flocked together behind Wayne for the false promise of dollars, I am not hindered by their continual demands and am able to concentrate on a paddler that listens and now seems to get better every single day.

"I want to get on and coach people I respect, who respect me in return. I don't want to help Wayne build his empire using my training programmes.

"Never in my whole career have I seen one group of people show such uncontrolled bad sporting behaviour at a regatta. I want no part of a system with Wayne having any influence over athletes.

"Coaches should lead athletes in high performance, and HP managers should support and help coaches to achieve that end. HP managers get paid good money. Coaches are paid in results."