I can remember one promising 400m runner who was not able to take his place in a championship 4 x 400m team after a Shot accident. This did not happen on a sports ground but at school when bored mates starting tossing the implement about.
In 1994 leading sprinter Mark Keddell was on his way to the World Junior Championships and rolled his ankle in a fun game of football at the New Zealand Team base in Kornwestheim, Germany.
We were fortunate that we had former Whanganui and Olympic physiotherapist Fiona Gutschlag with us who made immediate diagnosis and then treatment up to twice a day in the fortnight before the Championships.
Keddell finished 5th in the 200m and ran an outstanding leg in the New Zealand 4 x 400 team finishing fourth at the World Junior Championships. I have often reflected what might have been without the injury interruption to his final training. Good diagnosis and medical expertise on hand is a luxury that is not so easy to find and obtain away from the high-performance sport environment.
All too often younger athletes have a long wait for clear diagnosis and necessary MRI scans and expert follow-up, adding delay and frustration to their return to action.
The internet has changed our lives and certainly young athletes are influenced about what they read about leading athletes and try to follow their programmes, which they are not ready for.
As a young physical education student at Loughborough in Leicestershire my major study was on middle-distance training. I read extensively and was particularly interested in the training programmes of Arthur Lydiard and his group of New Zealand athletes.
I became an instant disciple and went straight into attempting to run a 100 miles a week. It was not long before I was in the hands of the physiotherapist learning a valuable lesson about progression in training.
Athletes in the search for success often add to prescribed training. They believe if training x is good 2x must be twice as good. I can remember one outstanding athlete in my coaching group who whenever I was away for more than a week would add additional training. I inevitably returned to an athlete with an injury.
The Whanganui Collegiate cross country teams would have been stronger with the presence of three leading injured athletes. Josephine Perkins has had a series of injuries all of which have been different. I have long supported variety in sport although additional activity does carry additional injury risk.
In 2020 Perkins, the 1st XI girls football goalkeeper, injured herself playing outfield just three days before last year's cross country teams challenge, the replacement for the cancelled New Zealand Schools Cross Country. This year football was the loser as Perkins broke her ankle when running in the school cross country – double frustration.
Jonah Seeds who arrived at Collegiate from Hutt Valley International Boys School (HIBS) in May ran superbly in the Karori Relays two weeks after his arrival and was added to the squad for New Zealand Schools. He too was injured playing football missing the championships.
The third athlete falls into the injured away from training/competition category after he was pushed in a House cheering practice. Finn O'Sullivan had made an immediate impact in track and field on his arrival from Christchurch in February. He has now missed all of March and Term 2 and surgical intervention might be needed to get him back to athletic action. All three have suffered the frustration of not being able to train and compete and long to be back in action.
Hopefully, we can look forward to an injury-free second half of 2021.
