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The Olympic Games are the pinnacle of the sporting calendar for coaches and athletes the world over. It’s hard to put into words what it means to represent your country at the Olympics – regardless of whether you are a coach or an athlete.
So, what is it like for those at the coal face of New Zealand sport in an Olympic year? How is an Olympic coach’s preparation affected by the simple fact that they are coaching their athletes towards the Olympic Games?

To find out, we asked Andrew Matheson, High Performance Manager for Rowing New Zealand, if things were different for his elite coaching team in an Olympic year.

“In a lot of situations, coaching in an Olympic year is all about trying to do everything the same as any other year,” says Andrew. This sounds easy, but is often a challenge, says Andrew, “thanks to the psychological pressure associated with the magic word, ‘Olympics’.”

Andrew explains that, because rowing has an annual World Championships event, preparing for the Olympics shouldn’t be any different to preparing for the World Championships. “The Olympic Games are held around the same time of year as the Worlds’, so coaches are focused on doing the same things with their athletes as they would any other year. They’re measuring the athlete’s performances against a similar stage the year before and working to improve on them.”

In fact, Andrew notes there are some interesting statistics showing that typically, the boats that are on the winning dais at the World Championships in the year before are the same boats that will go on to win the medals at the Olympic Games.

For coaches, preparation for an event like the Olympic Games is not just about what their rowers are doing. They must also focus on improving their own performance as coaches – which in turn will have a flow-on effect for their rowers. Coaches must undergo a selection process, along with the athletes, and Andrew says that it’s important that they get the right mix of rowers to coaches.

“Coaches are selected across the trials process, just like the rowers are. We keep an eye out for the right combinations to ensure the strongest team possible. That said, we also focus on creating stability across the coaching team in an effort to be consistent, which is providing us a good base to build increased performance on.”

As for the support that rowing coaches get at the Olympics, Andrew says that the very nature of their sport encourages self-reliance. “Rowing coaches in general are a fairly self-sufficient group. They roll up their sleeves and help with the dirty work of driving the boats around Europe during the competition season each year – they are used to working without the support of a separate logistics team,” Andrew explains.

“That said, we do provide the coaches with a good network of peers and other support people during the major events like the Olympics. That’s where roles like mine come into play, for example. Also, the coaches have access to others like our sports psychologist, the tour manager and the exercise physiologist. We make sure that they have plenty of brains to pick when they need advice or someone to bounce ideas off.”