{"id":883,"date":"2020-03-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-24T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/reports\/covid-19-finding-the-new-optimal-training-environment-amidst-the-disruption\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T05:12:21","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T05:12:21","slug":"covid-19-finding-the-new-optimal-training-environment-amidst-the-disruption","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/covid-19-finding-the-new-optimal-training-environment-amidst-the-disruption\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19: Finding the \u2018New\u2019 Optimal Training Environment Amidst the Disruption"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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\n Mar 24, 2020 <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>Articles<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

COVID-19: Finding the \u2018New\u2019 Optimal Training Environment Amidst the Disruption<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n \n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Category<\/div>\n Coaching & Development<\/a>, Human Performance<\/a>, Leadership & Culture<\/a> <\/div>\n
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Danny Holdcroft of British Skeleton runs through some of the programme\u2019s initial plans as Britain enters lockdown.<\/p>\n \n \n \n

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The International Olympic Committee today announced the postponement of the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics but the coronavirus pandemic is already had an impact on planning for the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing.<\/h4>\n
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By John Portch<\/h6>\n

\u201cWe lost the opening of the Olympic track, which we were due to visit at the end of February, beginning of March,\u201d admits Danny Holdcroft, the Head of Performance Innovation and Applied Research for the skeleton division of British Bobsleigh and Skeleton.<\/p>\n

The opening of the Xiaohaituo Bobsleigh and Luge Track in suburban Beijing was delayed by measures introduced to tackle the spread of Covid-19 in China.<\/p>\n

Holdcroft had earlier told the Leaders Performance Institute that while Beijing 2022 was a focus, so too are the 2026 Games in Milano Cortina (\u201cwe\u2019ve got to evolve quicker than the Olympic cycles\u201d).<\/p>\n

Such far-sightedness is common for a programme that has earned medals in skeleton at five consecutive Olympiads, including gold medals for Lizzy Yarnold in 2014 and 2018, despite lacking a home track.<\/p>\n

The immediate effects of such a delay may not be as pronounced as the disruption faced by other sports but, as Holdcroft explains, there is still plenty of planning going on behind the scenes.<\/p>\n

Danny, what has been the impact of Covid-19 on British Skeleton so far?<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

DH:<\/b><\/strong>\u00a0We are following UK government protocol where we can. We fortunate at the moment that we\u2019re in a review period. Our season finished a few weeks ago. The athletes are due to go on a break until the end of April. So it\u2019s about trying to get through that review period as best we can. We\u2019re second-guessing and waiting to see what happens moving forward, whether we\u2019re going to be impacted in terms of our training ability when we begin again. We\u2019re trying to give the athletes the means to keep moving forward as we would normally and try to adapt around that. It\u2019s an evolving day by day situation, really.<\/p>\n

Remarkably, the UK does not have a home skeleton track. When are you likely to feel the impact of that?<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

DH: <\/b><\/strong>As a sport, we rely heavily on international travel from September onwards; what impact will that have? We don\u2019t know and there\u2019s no point guessing what will come. We need to be best prepared and treat it a little bit like the Olympics. To give you an insight, when we go the Games, we have a \u2018what if?\u2019 scenario where we try to brainstorm all the worse-case possibilities that might occur to throw us off track when we go to the Games and it\u2019s a that kind of scenario now.<\/p>\n

What plans are now being put in place to handle the disruption? What do you need to be mindful of?<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

DH:<\/b><\/strong>\u00a0We\u2019re UK-based in training from May to September. First and foremost, we need to help the athletes, we need to make sure they say safe and well; and the staff. It\u2019s quite easy to say X, Y and Z as a sport, \u2018this is how we do it\u2019, but when you\u2019ve staff with families and kids off school and some athletes are the same, the wider knock-on of what is possible is a completely different challenge in reality. It\u2019s a minefield right now and we need to keep evolving day by day and week by week.<\/p>\n

What aspects of the disruption are currently in your control?<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

DH:<\/b><\/strong>\u00a0As a programme we\u2019re asking, \u2018right, what would we normally be doing now?\u2019 The guys need to be training so we accept that it\u2019s not going to be optimal; but what is <\/i><\/em>optimal within the new constraints? How do you ask questions to what you can actually do? At the end of the day, if we go into lockdown, which people talk about, and athletes can\u2019t train or can only do home-based stuff, then we\u2019re going to have to ask off the back of that what the knock-on would be and how best-prepared can we be off the back of that. We\u2019ve got a lot of strengths in our programme; as a nation, we go really well without a home track on a sliding front, so we know how to adapt and keep going without opportunities to be trackside so we\u2019ve got strategies, it\u2019s just moulding them together and making sure we\u2019re doing optimally what we can day by day.<\/p>\n

If you could give advice to another sports organisation in a similar boat what would it be?<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

DH:<\/b><\/strong>\u00a0Focus on athlete and staff wellbeing as well as that of the entire nation. Sport plays a huge role in a nation\u2019s status in the world but it\u2019s small on the scale. So athlete health and staff health is the first one. And then in the context of what you\u2019re able to do with your best plans and being positive with it, it\u2019s finding what your new optimum is within the constraints that are being placed on us or will be placed on us; and then control what you can control within that because we can\u2019t control anything outside that. We need to make sure we control our energy and keep our focus on what we can do to support people. There\u2019s no point being stressed or saying \u2018we would have done this if we hadn\u2019t had this\u2019 as it\u2019s irrelevant.<\/p>\n

In turn, if you could ask them a question what would it be?<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

DH: <\/b><\/strong>From a programme perspective, it would be how do we move forward through this and keep things to a high level and just asking that question: how are you approaching it to try and maintain the high performance aspects of your programme? How are your athletes coping? What are you doing?<\/p>\n

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What does the modern coach need to know?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We tackle this question in our latest Performance Special Report. Download Coachmaker: What the Modern Coach Needs to Know<\/em>, which features sports organisations as diverse as Ulster Rugby<\/strong>, the Geelong Cats<\/strong>, Minnesota Timberwolves<\/strong> and US Special Operations<\/strong> discussing personal development, creating performance environments, recruitment and using data in smarter ways.<\/p>\n