COACHING ON FOUR CONTINENTS AS SQUAD WARM UP FOR SUMMER.

With 2016 barely 3 months old, Trackspeed1-UK head coach, John Powell, has visited four continents, as well as overseen his squad steadily improve toward the 'business' end of the year!

After a few days in the US rekindling coaching links in southern states, Powell flew out to Thailand for a family visit, but still ended up advising one of the local athletes in Bangkok!

Then it was off to Austria with an England team in February for an indoor international, before jetting off to South Africa as a consultant advisor to the Director filming a pre-Olympics commercial, which was filmed on mountainsides around four hours outside Cape Town.

Also involved in that exercise were current TS1 sprinter Dwayne Dowding, and former squad member Matthew Threadgold, plus Olympian Dan Awde and South African sprinter Ryle Rene De Morny.

Taking time out to admire a new continent - John Powell
admires the Western Cape at sunrise earlier this month

"It was a real experience, and seeing some of the scenery around Cape Town was amazing," said John,  "We can't say too much about the commercial itself, but it was awesome working with the Californian film crew and a huge team of support staff, although the 4.30am starts were a tiny bit irksome!"

After time back in the UK - and a brief foray into rather more nearby Sussex to deliver a Masterclass to local coaches and athletes at Broadbridge Heath, Horsham, John will jet off again to Orlando with a number of squad athletes for the annual warm weather training camp in Clermont.

Helping county coaches and athletes in Sussex -
John chats about aspects of sprinting science to a
selected group of the county's top exponents

"The Sussex event was great fun," said John, who spoke on a number of subjects including the 'coach/athlete journey', acceleration, running bends, and how to prepare for championships.  After that it was down to the track to put a lot of it into practice, assisted by one of the all-time greats in Sussex sprinting, Jason Hussain, and former European junior Champion David Bolarinwa.

Meanwhile, other Trackspeed1-UK athletes, whilst unlikely to be involved in the Rio Olympics this year, are shaping up to the point that PB's are expected pretty much across the board this summer.

The short indoor season produced almost everyone setting lifetime best times over 60m, and a similar return is hoped for certainly the 100m this summer, if not 200m as well.

The group's first competition will be in Gainesville, Florida, on April 22nd.