unbeknownst to me, I actually violated international immigration law at the time.
And I was like, wow, well, Jim is like an international level athlete with years of
conditioning and training behind him and you're just going to like pick up his training week from
a video and then do that and think that's the right thing for you. I was like, oh, this person's going
to be injured real quick. The scrutiny on myself and the other coaches was so much that it was
almost unbearable at times. I've had athletes been like coming into international events where
my coach says that I'm not to warm up with you because you don't know what you're doing and
things like that. Welcome to another episode of the That's Not Real Climbing podcast. I'm your
host Jinni and I'm excited to introduce my guest, Tom Greenall. Tom is Team GB's ex head coach who
personally coached Shana Koxy into getting her Tokyo Olympic ticket and of course has worked with
the rest of Team GB up until he left the national team earlier this year in April. In this episode,
we'll learn about why he's banned from the USA, the strategy for getting Shana to qualify for the
Olympics and the politics and public backlash he faced working in the circuit that led to his
eventual resignation. Tom was kind enough to re-record this interview for the second time
because we lost the footage from the first one. So please send him some love and I hope you enjoy
this episode. You've also been like quite busy the past few months. So what have you been up to?
I got back into kind of coaching again. I've been busy kind of like, you know,
working with some different athletes as well. And then I got a part-time role like coach education.
So working with like a branch of the federation, they're slightly separate looking on like
developing the coach training that we do in the UK. So then I was like prepping that, delivering that
and actually I just had a knee surgery as well actually. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, how did that go?
Yeah, it actually went really well. Yeah, so that's kind of like kept me busy but in like an
interesting way. Like I guess just prioritizing the rehab around working and then just trying
to make everything fit around that. It's just been a bit more tricky. And then actually me
and my girlfriend just got, we just got a new dog as well. Oh nice. Yeah, so it's just been busy.
Like a puppy or something, some dog from the shelter? Yeah, she's not yet. We got her from
a rescue. She's not a puppy but she's quite young. But yeah, she had like a difficult start in life.
So it's nice to be able to give her a good home. Yeah, I got that. I'm actually fostering kittens
right now. So I've got two kittens hanging around somewhere. I don't know, they're pretty
independent already I guess at this point. Was the knee issue something that you've been dealing with
and like putting off until your time or was it like a recent issue? So I guess I tore the cartilage
while I was climbing in Greece in the October of last year. And then I think it was Christmas
time where I was out running with my dad where like the thing just tore really badly.
And so I was in this two minds about whether or not I should go
private or obviously in the UK we have the National Health Service. And so I kind of wanted to see how
bad it felt after a few months and it sort of got better to a point and then it just stopped getting
better. So actually by which time I was in like the National Health Service system and they thought
because of my occupation, my age, they could get it done a bit quicker. But still from the point of
injury to having the surgery done that was still eight months. So I was kind of doing what I could
around that issue for that period of time. But with a cartilage tear of that nature only a surgeon
is going to sort it for you. So it was the only option really for me.
Yeah, I mean I've heard like a little bit about the NHS versus like private stuff. But yeah, I
don't know too much about that. It's different in the US.
Yeah, I guess you know on the positive it makes health care so much more accessible for the vast
majority of people and there's never an issue where, you know, for example, like my ex-wife
actually she had a heart attack when she was like 20, 25. Yeah, and so the experience that we had,
you know, I think with the NHS, I think when it's more kind of like orthopedic low level things,
it's not, it can appear really slow and clunky. But if you actually ever need anything major,
the service is incredible. And if we were in the States, like that would have been thousands and
thousands of pounds like the care and the procedure. And we just weren't set up at the time to,
you know, be able to fund that kind of thing. And so actually when you're in a position like that,
you just think how incredible the service it really is. But I think if you're like
waiting for an orthopedic surgery like I have with my knee, like, and you're like, oh my God,
I've got to wait six months to have this thing done. Yeah, or sometimes even longer, it seems quite
slow. But actually, I think if you really need the service, it's really good. I feel very lucky
to be resident of the UK with that. Yeah, I honestly don't really know how it works here.
I don't have a job right now. So I have like disaster coverage, I think. And hopefully no
disasters will happen. But yeah, I'm glad that that's all been working out for you. So I guess
just getting started so that we can get to know you a bit better. When did you start climbing?
And you also sort of like competed yourself a bit, right? Yeah, so I got into climbing,
really through my dad. So I grew up in part of the UK called North Wales, which is really famous for
its traditional climbing. And for those of you who've maybe seen it, it's where a British
male called Emma Twyford climbed the first 9a by a British woman. So like that area, if anyone's
familiar with that, that's North Wales. Yeah, and I grew up climbing there with my dad, all disciplines
really. And then we would travel to Fon as well, from like a really young age. So he, I guess in a
way, he really gave me like a really broad experience and appreciation for the sport.
And we'd travel a lot in the UK climbing. And so I spent quite a lot of time on the grit stone edges
of the Peak District as well, when I was younger. And then that then led me to university, where I
did my degree and I started getting into climbing a lot more seriously then. So I was probably like,
well, 18 at that point. And then from that, yes, like I fell in with a group of high level climbers,
did some competitions at like national level there, but nothing beyond that. And that's probably
between, yeah, that's like a long time ago, like 2005, six to like 2007. A long time ago.
Yeah, you didn't want to continue with like the competition process.
I think at that time for me, like the competition scene was fairly small, I would say, like in the
UK really. And I think to me, the interest was really like an outdoor climbing, because that's
where I've kind of come from at that time. The love for competitions really came through coaching
for me much later. And that's really where I found, I suppose the most gratifying element of it
for me was through the coaching side, whereas personal climbing, I always kind of preferred
outdoor rock and adventures outside.
Okay, so then getting into coaching, how did you start? How did you get your start there?
Yeah, it's actually maybe like at the time years ago, it was a less clear pathway, I would say,
than maybe it is today. So I came to Sheffield to do my undergraduate degree in sports coaching.
Actually, at the time, I kind of got a really good spectrum of coaching in other sports.
Because I guess even at that time, you know, like we're talking like early thousands, right,
that the scene was very much instructing, I suppose, and there wasn't much coaching going
on in terms of regular contact and helping people develop with training and developing skills.
So realistically, I kind of chose at that time to sort of focus more on other sports,
and I had other jobs before this. And then I'm guessing at some point, maybe about 2010,
maybe, I sort of started to appreciate from this experience that I had elsewhere that
there was these big gaps when it came to my home federations work around coaching.
And so I sort of started working at the local climbing gym, where I was teaching kids
classes and things like that. And then maybe just sort of through putting myself out there a bit
and having conversations about, you know, we could do better with this kind of stuff,
I got the opportunity to start working with the national team, like the junior national team at
that point. And then that kind of led me into international sort of, you know, coaching,
taking the youth team abroad. And then that kind of like rolled up and rolled up, I guess,
until I guess I probably became like a full time professional coach in climbing, I guess,
probably around about, I guess, like that 2015, 2016 mark. So then that's when I was, yeah,
a full time professional. And then I continue working with the GB team working privately with
a squad that I ran from Sheffield, which actually included quite a lot of GBA athletes,
at that point. And then I briefly moved over to your side of the Atlantic to coach in Houston,
of all places, really briefly, and then back to the UK from, you know, kind of 2019 onwards.
Yeah, why did you decide to do a brief stint in the US?
Yes, at the time, I actually, yeah, at the time, I kind of, I was kind of,
I felt like I'd kind of reached a bit of a point of not feeling the challenge or the stretch maybe
within the coaching that I was doing at home. And I kind of felt like I was one of the more
experienced coaches nationally, and I wanted to kind of broad my experience a little bit.
And so I got an opportunity to come to the US to work with a gym and kind of like start squad
and start to, I guess, get a bit of a different feel for it in a different country. And so I
wanted to take that opportunity. But, you know, tragic sad story is actually had major visa issues
because the attorney who's advising the immigration process didn't file some of the paperwork in time.
So true story, unbeknownst to me, I actually violated international immigration law at the time.
And actually, I'm now currently suspended from coming to the US at all, which is very, very
strange. Yeah, yeah. So I've never been to the Salt Lake City World Cup, for example, because I
could never travel there. Oh, my God, I had no idea about that. Oh, that's such a shame.
Well, when does it when does it like end? So it's supposed to be a lifetime ban. But the truth is,
I think after after 10 years, you can normally apply for a petition. But I will never be able
to travel on an ESTA. So I'll always have to come in on a different type of visa. Oh, my gosh.
So yeah, if anyone is thinking, listeners thinking like, I'd like to go to the US to do some coaching,
then make sure you check all the check all the boxes on the immigration. Oh, my gosh, that's crazy.
Did you have to like, go to court or anything like that? No, no, didn't go to court. But I mean, I'd
sold all of my, you know, all my stuff, you know, shipped all my stuff over, signed the lease on the
apartment in Houston was actually like living there. And then returned to the UK over Christmas
to see family, and then went to the the embassy in London and actually had like the written
approval for the visa, but then failed to pass the last bit, which was the interview. So had the had
the visa rejected in London immediately, and was then told I could never travel to the US. And so
like, all my stuff was in Houston at this point. So I just called up some friends and was like,
Oh, my god, this has happened. And they let me stay with them for a bit. And that was like the
Christmas of 2018. Oh, my gosh. Okay. Wow, what an experience that is. Well, that's a shame that
you'll never get to visit here. I feel like we have some stuff to offer. But I guess you'll be
you'll be fine in the UK as well. So you mentioned that you felt like back at the time, there wasn't
a very straightforward way to get into coaching. Do you think it's a more straightforward process
now? Or like, if anyone's listening and are interested in getting into coaching, like what
should they do? I mean, I guess like at the time, it just wasn't really something that was maybe
taught about that much or accepted that was happening. And so I guess there was maybe less
of a demand for it. So I would say now, there's probably more, you know, squads, or the appetite
for coaching is more broadly accepted now. So I think you can set yourself up independently more
easily now and probably get business. I think you can also probably through a climbing gym,
as well be able to access, you know, coaching like grassroots coaching, and then you can
access, you know, coaching like grassroots level more easily. And now there is a lot more of a
developed like competition structure in the UK. It's not as developed as it is in the US. But I
think that that's like another example of how, you know, in the US, most climbing gyms will have a
team or big gyms will have a team. And I think so you can normally find your way in that way. So it
is more developed, I think, because it's more widely accepted. And, you know, I don't know about
the US, but in the UK, like we have a, like a coaching like award scheme, so you can start to
train and implement your skills, and you can progress that way. As well as obviously, just,
you know, through experience as well set yourself up. So I think there's more opportunity now. And,
you know, we're talking, well, you know, since I started my coaching, you know, coaching degree
almost 20 years later. So it's a lot's changed in that time. And there's this little thing called
Olympics that's happened. And that's really obviously changed quite a lot, because it's put
climbing on the radar of more people. And so, yeah, I think we can expect more growth for sure
in the next few years. So I mean, surely, you know, a lot of like the other national coaches,
do a lot of them have certain like degrees or certifications? Or is it just kind of,
they just, I don't know, got into coaching? I think there's probably a bit of a mix, really.
I certainly think there's, you know, quite a few
federations will employ like, like former athletes, as well, because when it comes to
arena based experience, very few can really appreciate what that's like. But an ex athlete
can do a really good job of that. So often, that's a really good way that you can sort of,
as you finish your athletic career, move into coaching. I mean, I can think about some of my
friends and colleagues as well in Austria, like Killian Fischhuber and Kassel Salvein, for example.
You know, they're the two main coaches, I suppose, for Austria, obviously, incredibly respected
and well decorated internationally in their own right as athletes. So that can be a route.
Or I suppose you could have coaches like, I guess, like myself, who are more kind of like
academically and came up through the youth system. So I think there's probably a few different ways
that it looks, but it might, it might depend on your own country's sort of processing system for
how it works. For them, you know, like the French national team have like a really big team with
lots of different coaches in, you have some previous athletes, obviously, in Nico Jamuel,
but also people like Cecile Abzu, but then you have other coaches as well who didn't compete.
So it's like a, it's like a good mix. And I think it's, it's a real sort of mystique that you don't
have to be or have been a fantastic competitor or pro climber to be a good coach. But there are
aspects that I think you can appreciate more if you have been in those things and you can learn
those skills too. Do you feel like there's anything that you got from your, I guess, like degree that
kind of sets you apart from other coaches in particular? I think it's, yeah, interesting. So
I have, I have my degree, then I went, I went back later to do my master's degree and I actually
found my master's degree more informative. And I can't tell whether that was because at the time,
my own personal experience of coaching was greater. So I could make sense of what they
were teaching us. But I think what it did do is it just opened my, my eyes to this idea of like
forming your coaching practice to call it that. So, you know, I think rather than kind of just
sort of haphazardly wandering through this, you know, finding out what works and doesn't work,
what it did is it gave me this idea of these are skills that you need to shape your own way of
doing things, like a craft, you know. So if you were like a painter, you could just go and paint,
you know, and just like trial and error it and this is, this is what I do. But then I suppose if
you went and spent time at some different schools and you met a lot of different artists who kind of
helped you learn a little bit about why their style was their style, you can take a little bit
of the experience from all of these people and then inform your practice. So expanding knowledge
through those things was definitely really helpful for me. And I really try and glean as much as I
can from most of the coaches I work with. I think often like almost like academically
having some of that stuff in the background helps you develop skills where you can be quite
critical. And I don't mean that in a negative way. I mean critical like in a, I suppose in like a
positive way that you can read a new piece of research that comes out and you can appraise it
to decide that the strengths or weaknesses of it, you know, you don't swallow every bit of information
that comes out from climbing and say, oh, this is the new thing. You know, I see a lot of coaches who,
you know, they're in the gym and they're doing activity and like I'm sure they've seen that on
Instagram. You know, I'm following trends or as I think as a coach, you've got a much more deeper
knowledge, understanding and you can critically look at something and think, all right, well,
I see that but I can see the strengths of it, the weaknesses of it. Where does it sit for me? Does
this sit with my practice? So I'd say that's like a big difference, I would say. So what's like an
Instagram trend you've seen in terms of coaching that you would never employ? I've never employed.
I think most things, if I'm going to be diplomatic, most things have their place. It's just where and
when. But I think what I've noticed recently is that I think there's a lot of information out there
that makes us believe that the science behind climbing training is really complicated but there
are coaches or companies that can make it really simple for you. I think the truth is that the
science behind climbing training is really quite simple but the application is actually quite
complicated. In terms of like doing it well, putting it into that person's life and getting
it right, that's hard to do well. But the science that underpins it is really basic, really.
Do you have an example of that?
I guess a good example is if we go back like, I don't know, 10 years or so, a lot of the research
that was really coming out around climbing training was around the number of moves you need to do in
the week. And it was very volume driven around you need to be working at this and to boost your
endurance, you're doing all these thousands of moves and this kind of thing. And I think it
really then led to the application of quite general sports science terminology. So like we
have this thing called, and correct me if I start to lose you as I chat loads of like
sciencey like, basically like energy systems over time. Yeah. And this is stuff that people learn
at like A level. A level is like college level, like PE in this country, you know, about like
you're in like your ATPPC system, that's anaerobic. And then you move through to your
glycolytic system, that's anaerobic too. And then you get to the aerobic system, which is obviously
oxygen fueled. And I think they've become this explosion of, I'd hear people down the gym
thinking like I'm working on like my anaerobic power or my aerobic power and all these terms.
And actually, you know, those principles had all been underpinned with research extrapolated from
sports where the types of muscle contractions or the movements were essentially not the same as
climbing. And so it was like a bit of a leap. And that's what happens in research. Like you
have to extrapolate, find a starting point. But in the more modern realm, when we know a bit more
about it, it's been clearly proven that those ways of operating just not as relevant. Nowadays,
what's the like, what's the thing to do to increase your aerobic capacity? Yeah, yeah. So I think
coming back to your question, you like Instagram trends, right? You're like, yeah, yeah. You're
like, what's what's the trend that you wouldn't follow? And it's mainly I think, people think
that they need to train, most recreational climbers, at least nowadays, need to think they
need to train like an elite athlete to get the goals that they want. And that's not true.
I think also to become an elite athlete.
I mean, yeah, I mean, I guess at some point, yeah, you've got to start doing that. But there is just
so much like, I think information out there now. And I mean, I was actually talking to somebody
the day in the wall, and they were like, I'm doing this training. And I was like, okay, like, where
did you get that training from? They're like, I watched this, there's an online YouTube channel
called Wedge. I'll plug Wedge because Sam Lawson is a friend. And they followed Jim for like,
Jim Pope for a week of his training. And they're like, I'm just gonna do what Jim does. And it's
like, wow, well, Jim is like an international level athlete with years of conditioning and
training behind him. And you're just gonna like, pick up his training week from a video and then
do that and think that's the right thing for you. It's like, oh, this person's gonna be injured.
Real quick. Yeah, I guess that happens. But I don't know what else are you to do as just a
random climber who's watching YouTube videos. Yeah, yeah. And I guess that's what you know,
we said before about being critical, you know, being able to sift through that stuff, because
there's almost so much information out there. Now it's hard, you know, someone like, you know,
yourself, you've got your goals. Like, how do you find your way through this, like, this world of
just stuff is like jumping out left, right and center about do this, this is the best thing,
this revolutionize your training, you know, it's hard to pick apart what's good and what's not
appropriate for you. And so that's when really, my dad summed it up really well, really. Someone
asked him, like, Oh, your son, your son's a coach, like, what does that really mean? And my dad said,
it means he spent his career doing all the reading so that you don't have to. And I was like, Oh,
it kind of makes that kind of makes sense. Okay, so the answer is, if you can afford it,
get a coach for yourself. I mean, I think so. But I mean, I obviously would say I really enjoy but
not everybody needs a coach, right? I think a lot of people can make great improvements, like,
a lot I know people who are very fascinated at reading and they're very critical themselves by
nature and enjoy that process of trialing it for themselves and they know themselves very well,
and that's great. Maybe those people don't need coaches. And I think also a lot of people don't
necessarily want to train per se, they just want to go and enjoy climbing. But I genuinely believe
if you want to get good, quicker, having somebody in your corner to support you with that journey
to be that, you know, kind of like critical person that kind of helps you organize and structure
it that person who can say back down, right? When you're like, I just one more try, and they're
like, okay, no, because we're going too far over that line. That's really good. But then also
having somebody to say, come on, get off your ass, Jenny, we need to go, we need to do this. If you
want that goal, you know, I hear that too often. That's also part of it. All right. Okay. So yeah,
that's kind of your background. Working with like the GB youth team, and then making it up the way
to head coach. So I just want to get a bit into, I guess, the people you've coached on the GB team,
I think there are a lot of stars out there that people are kind of interested in and would be
happy to know that you were part of their like climbing journey. So first up, we've got a lot of
Shauna fans, you coached her up to her Olympic qualifications. So I'm sure people would be really
interested in hearing what all went into that. Please excuse this brief intermission. But if
you're interested in an entire bonus episode with Tom that I had to scrap due to technical difficulties,
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podcast help me break even and they help improve the experience of the guests. If you'd like to
help out non monetarily, liking, commenting and sharing helps a great deal as well. Back to the
show. Yeah, well, I've known Shauna for a while, you know, she lived in Sheffield with me and we'd
see each other in the climbing wall. And at the time, I was working with a lot of other, you know,
GB athletes. And so I think she'd, she'd kind of like parted ways maybe with her previous coach.
But she still had this, you know, this dream of going to the Olympic Games. And so she was
already working with Leah Crane as well at the time, who was kind of supporting her with like
technical training. But I think there was kind of like a need, I think, to kind of unpick the
Olympic, like the goal a little bit. And so I remember going to her house for dinner and for a
potty and she was just like, I'd like you to, you know, come and help me try and do this. And so
realistically, the first job that I had within that team was to think, right, what's it going to
take to qualify for the Olympic Games? And like, how do we actually break that down into something
that's manageable? And then how do we kind of try and fit the training around trying to achieve
that? And so realistically, that was my job back in the autumn of 2018, all the way through until
her qualification. So it was really about, I suppose, with those two of us coaching, me and
Leah. So Leah would handle a lot of the kind of like technical stuff, like in the wall, like
focusing on movement and the way that those two had a relationship around movement discussion,
which is phenomenal. And my job was really to support them both by having this big plan of this
Olympics. This is the targets. This is what we're going to try and prioritise. We're going to try
and make a dent here and we're not going to worry too much about this. Yeah. So that was really
cool experience because at the time it was like, I'd worked with other GB internationals, but
obviously Shawna is an incredibly highly decorated former two-time World Cup winner,
overall World Cup winner. So that was like a real kind of like, wow, let's go and step it up a bit.
And I'm really grateful to her and the people I worked with there for the time that I spent
with them. It was great fun. So I guess your role was more of like,
rather than like physical training coaching, it was more like big picture kind of coaching.
I suppose like a bit of a link between the two. So I suppose like I would write the training and
I would be in the gym with Leah and me and Leah would jointly implement it. So I guess some of
the stuff around, if we were trying to like chase improvements physically, I would do more of that.
If we were trying to chase improvements technically, Leah would do more of that. So it was kind of like
a bit of a balance between the two of us. And yeah, but my job was to create the plan,
to answer this question, like how do we get to the Olympics? And credit to Shawna as well,
like she's such a phenomenal athlete. She has one of the most incredible elite mindsets out there.
And, you know, she was able to like, I think exceed even our projections of where she could be
to qualify in the Hatchioji World Champs. Yeah. And I mean, that was definitely like a weird
Olympics to try and qualify for because of the combined, the super, super combined format.
So what was the strategy for that? Yeah, I mean, the strategy was, you know,
quite a simple one, was obviously with the three disciplines, you can't really look to be at a super
high level across all three because there's such different physiological and technical demands.
And we saw during that period of time, lots of athletes having injury problems because trying
to train all three, the volume attached to that is just enormous. And particularly when you're
trying to straddle such different, you know, earlier we talked about energy systems, but,
you know, outputs, it's really complicated. So what we realized really quickly, Leah and I,
is that Shona's capacity in more strength or power-based disciplines is her super strength.
And so it really emerged that speed was going to be the key speed embolder. And looking at that
system, when it was a multiplication of ranking, we actually had a model where we would check in
a little bit about where do we need to roughly be in terms of ranking in each of these different
things. And we had an objective, which was kind of like the nine second mark, because as a combined
Shona's capacity for getting a reasonably competitive speed time, not against the speed
specialists, but against the other lead embolder athletes was really quite good. And so she'd run,
I think she was running like between 15 and 12 seconds in training. Remember, we have this
discussion, like we want to get this down to like nine seconds or as close to nine seconds as
possible, and then she will be competitive. So we're like, we have to do that. And we need to
maintain boulder because boulder is the other thing that can deliver like a one or two ranking.
So that was the emphasis. And we just did enough of lead to kind of tick that over. We didn't really,
really prioritize that in a big way, because it was difficult to, you know, handle the volume of
all of that. And then it was, you know, we got to Hachioji, there's a lot of pressure on the
Japanese athletes and, you know, Shona produced two PBs back to back of nine two, I think, and
nine one to beat Miho Nanaka and Futaba to get an incredibly high ranking in speed. And then she
absolutely killed it in the boulder. And so, and in fact, in the qualifiers for that, but you know,
she did incredibly well on the lead. But when it came to actually the final, I remember sitting
there thinking, Shona only needs to mathematically climb halfway up this lead wall. She's already in
that position to qualify now because of speed and because of boulder. So the strategy really
paid off really. But hey, I'm not taking credit for that. She did the hard work. She deserves all
the credit. It was phenomenal performance. Sure. Yeah. I mean, in terms of, so like in terms of
speed coaching, I feel like that's quite a different, I don't know, I feel like it's pretty
different from like lead and boulder coaching, maybe. And going from like 15 seconds to nine
seconds is kind of difficult when you're like, trying to shave off those like, like, once you
get faster and faster, it gets harder to make improvements there. So did you do any speed
coaching or did you like find another speed coach? So actually, Leah did a lot of it, which was
really super cool. And I guess it just came, it became, you know, we went to a wall in the UK that
has a speed wall and they were really good. And they just, we went there, we drove from Sheffield
like two and a half hours every week to go and train there a lot. And actually we did go abroad
for a speed training camp and we met with a speed specialist coach who gave us a lot of information
about that. So actually, you know, the Ukrainian athlete, Daniel Baldura. So we spent some time
with Daniel and he gave us a lot of insights around doing stuff for training, but also things like
actually on the wall. But, you know, we went to work so much and Leah really and Shauna, they
created like a, like a sequence that worked for Shauna and we could get the, you know, the
repetitions in. And she started to consistently get, you know, get quicker. But really the magic
of what happened at Hatchoogy is, is Shauna's competitive mindset. She just made that decision
of I'm going to, I'm going to do this now. And, you know, it was a phenomenal performance from her.
Yeah. So I guess going into present day, I mean, you're no longer the head coach, but you're still
obviously pretty involved and had brought up the team a bunch. Definitely this year, it seemed
like Team GB had found some kind of like special form, maybe all of the hard work that you had put
in the years before it was paying off. But do you feel like there was anything in particular that
like in terms of training you guys changed or specifically worked on in training or coaching
that you feel like made this like special difference this year? I don't think so. And as well,
you know, we have a very interesting set up in the UK as well. And most of the time the athletes
are like in their home environments, like they have often different coaches at home. And then
they kind of come into the GB setup where, you know, we're working together. I think the UK is
really interesting because we're very stubborn as a nation. And I think that one of the biggest
strengths really is that a lot of our athletes are very hungry and they really want to kind of
go out there and show what they can do. And so I think that realistically, and I'm sure that even
there must be a good stat for this, like in terms of how much power of investment like GB does
incredibly well. And I think that that success really comes from having a very determined and
very, how to describe it, like hungry group of athletes who are really, you know, pushing to get
those opportunities. And it's pretty competitive as well, you know. So I'm sure the same is true
as well, you know, with like Japan, for example, if you look at them as a nation, it's how do they
continually bring through generation upon generation of top climbers. And it's like, well,
there's a lot of people climbing, it's very competitive to get into that Japanese team and
you've got to fight really hard to do it. So I think that is a real key aspect of what makes
Great Britain a good nation. I think we've got some good home coaches who are doing good stuff in
the walls. But I think as well, we have a very like experienced team of coaches that do go out for
the international stuff who are able to take care of all the logistics and all the arena support
to give those athletes the best chance, you know, to, you know, to deliver and where athletes
want to as well, we obviously support directly with coaching. So in particular, you know, Liam
Britton coaching directly with Toby or Rachel Carr coaching directly with Erin McNeese, you know,
those coaches are almost like embedded within that athletes team as well. So they bring their
knowledge to that as well. I think that, you know, is a really cool thing, because then the person
that you're working with in the week is also that person who's there with you at the international.
So I think that was really significant in supporting both Erin and Toby to great performances
at the games.
I guess when you were head coach before, before they had like really had their like huge breakout
seasons, did you feel like you saw something different within them that made them stand out?
I think that they have all got an incredible mindset. And I think that they have all got an
incredible mindset. And I think that they're very different, those two athletes as well, they bring
very different strengths to the table. You know, Toby has an enormous capacity to absorb training.
And he's incredibly, you know, motivated and focused. And I think then the work he does with
his dad as well, you know, they're very detail orientated, they almost like take no, take no
but are very open as well to new ideas and principles. And I think all of that is kind of
part of the, you know, part of it as well, you know, take on board all the information that you
can learn, listen to others, but be really clear about what you want to do, be very focused.
That's really clear. And I'd say that also is true, Erin as well. You know, being very focused and
very dedicated. I mean, it was really obvious. And I remember us sitting down to have a meeting
before Erin's preseason, really talking about, you know, we really need to train hard this year,
we really need to level up. And, and sort of, you know, me kind of encouraging the coaches being
like, push, push her, you know, she wants to be pushed, let's, let's, let's, you know, up the ante
a little bit. And then Erin also has the capacity to go and do that. So that's, you know, been
wonderful to see. But also, you know, other athletes as well, like obviously Molly and
Hamish McArthur as well, you know, getting the games opportunity. Like I think GB was what, like
one of maybe two or three nations to have full quota at the Olympic Games. Like that's a
phenomenal stat. I'd actually think overall, two men in the final and one woman in the final. Like
I'm sure if there was a medal for team, I think GB won that. So that's, that's a phenomenal
achievement and credit to them. Yeah. It was like a crazy Olympics for team GB.
Do you, what are some of the differences that you've seen between coaching
individuals versus working as the head coach for like the entire GB team?
Yeah, it's definitely, it's definitely different. And I'm sure that the other head coaches out
there will appreciate this too, is there's a bit more of kind of almost like strategically managing
the thing. So, you know, kind of setting up the season plan, how you might work that strategically,
how that sits with budgets, like where do you send the team, where and when, that kind of thing.
That's definitely more a part of it. But I think to me, at least in my experience, while I was
head coaching at GB, one of the biggest differences was learning for me to let go a little bit of the
direct input with the athletes and mentoring a coaching team to do that, which freed me up to
almost have more of like a, like a quarterback style role where I was sat a bit further back
from the action kind of coordinating them. And that was really rewarding, actually. Not to say
that I didn't still have the opportunity to do plenty of frontline coaching, which I did.
But that main difference was this idea of like building a team of coaches, of mentoring them,
of finding what their strengths were, and kind of fielding them in complementary roles together and
yeah, supporting them as individuals and making that a cohesive unit. That was like a big thing.
So I would say in the short term, it was leadership. That's the main difference, I think.
I think being a coach is one thing when you're kind of doing the technical stuff, but being a head
coach is about leadership. And that's definitely a different thing.
Okay. So can we go into a bit like what the nitty gritty training process is kind of like,
especially when the whole team is together, like during team trainings or like whenever it's like,
what's it called? Like,
we have like a camp or something.
Yeah, like a training camp or something like that. Like what kind of what goes on there?
Yeah, I suppose so. It kind of looked a bit different over different points in time,
different years. But I suppose the main thing in the UK that we really emphasized was
what I'd call like time on task training. So, you know, a lot of the climbers can go and they can do
their circuits and they can do their weight sessions, stuff like that, like independently.
But having, you know, because we don't have a national training center now in the UK.
We did have one for a period of time, but it was really difficult to kind of get the holds and
stuff in there that we needed. So what we'd really do is we would work very closely with our national
headsetter and we would look for, we do a lot of analysis around like trends and styles of boulders
and difficulties of boulders and that kind of thing. And so normally when we'd come together as
a team, the biggest area that we could add value was by having a specific setting done
that would match the requirements of the team. So we would go, at every international, we would
catalog all of the boulders, for example. You know, and what we would do is we would look at
different stylistic themes and then we'd be able to kind of track them in terms of finding out
like which are the styles of boulders that we as a team find difficult male team, female team,
individuals. And so when we came together as a team, we could really then enhance the experience
of learning on them. So during pre-season in particular, it wouldn't always be comp simulation,
like sometimes it would just be sessioning on the boulders together as a team, learning from your
teammates. Really kind of like finding where the gaps are, you know what I mean? So my idea was
always a team, an athlete would come into a team training, they would climb on the boulders, they
would get feedback from others as coaches, and then they could go back to their home environment
more informed about maybe the work-ons that they needed to do at that particular point in time.
And then when they'd come back from another to another training, they would be able to come back
in and say, okay, I've been working on this. Like, let's see if it's making a difference.
And then as we'd get close towards the season, we would start to simulate maybe aspects of the
performance environment, because in all honesty, there is no way you can replicate competition.
Competition is competition, the consequence and everything else that you can't really truly
replicate it, but you can mimic some of the demands of it to have a session dressed up
like a competition so people can see how they're doing in terms of their processes and their
practices and keeping them sharp. Because you really have to hit the ground running now, you
know, at World Cups, you can't take four or five to get into it. And in particular, as we were
running in towards the Paris Games, obviously the athletes who are going to go and do OQS and
things, there are a totally different timetable to the other athletes that are going to do the
World Cup series. So it was really how do we get them as sharp as possible to go to, I think it
was the China World Cups were the first ones, and then on to the OQS. And then we had the
first ones and then on to the OQS. So yeah, so I guess in summary, a lot of time on task training
around movement specific stuff, and then leading into simulation and replicating the demands of an
arena situation.
Yeah, so you mentioned there's a big difference between simulation and the actual thing. Do you
ever see athletes who are able to perform well in simulation and then somehow they just like
crumble given like the, I guess like the pressure of the real situation and like the crowd and
everything like that?
Undoubtedly, there's a trait of the really top athletes where they, and actually we talked
earlier, you know, Shauna is one of those. Shauna's capacity to go up a gear in competition
versus training is one of the key hallmarks of her as an athlete. And I think actually
Toby is another, but the difference is that Toby's standard in training is so high.
Like for Toby, a competition is reasonably easy in terms of the complexity of the boulders and
the routes that he gets. You know, so that's a very different way of looking at it. But for sure,
I've seen it over my career definitely when in the pre-season running up, we've done multiple
simulations and there's an athlete or two who were winning those, you know, they're winning
training and then we've gone to internationals and they've not been the ones top of the roster for
GB at that time. So it is definitely a thing.
Okay. And so you would say Shauna was kind of the opposite where maybe like the competition
pressure was helpful.
Yeah, I think Shauna, how to phrase it, Shauna knows how to win. She knows how to win.
And she can, she can action that, which is great. And I think that you can see it now that Toby is
learning how to do that because his, you know, it's a really interesting thing, isn't it? Like
some people describe luck and I don't really believe in luck per se. And I think a really
good example of this was for those who, you know, your listeners, you should go and watch the
Yanya unfiltered, like little mini documentary series.
Because she talks often, doesn't she? Particularly around her cycle. And she said something like 70%
of the medals that she won, she won while on her period. And so when there's lots of factors
influencing whether or not that person can give their best on a particular moment, whether
Ashley is capable of winning that frequently, they're not lucky every week. They have found a
way to levy their skills and abilities and irrespective of the environment, whether you're
in Korea or China or the US or Europe, they can apply that process to deliver the performance
consistently. That's not luck, that's you've figured out how to win. And I think that's a
really interesting aspect of performance at the very end, which, you know, I guess like,
you know, if you climb outside and so I was like, oh, do you really climb 13B? And it's like,
yeah, because I can climb 13B on any rock type in multiple different conditions almost any time.
Like that is somebody who truly can climb at the level. I think the same roughly motion is
applicable to, you know, to World Cups. I suppose some of those exceptions are you have people like
people like Jakob Schubert, who are like Mr. Championships, who can actually perform
consistently, but it's a bit up and down World Cups. But you put Jakob in a World
Championships or Olympic final and you're going to see the best Jakob you have all season.
Yeah, he's a very interesting example. It was really cool to see him get a medal, for sure.
Yeah, the Janja example is interesting. When I heard that I was like, yeah, but also she's just
like so much stronger physically, I feel like, than everyone else that maybe that kind of
overcompensates a bit or compensates for the cycle happening. Because I know for me,
it feels like I'm like a good bit weaker, like the few days leading up to it. And so I've always
just thought like, if this ever happens in like an important moment, or like, if I have a competition
coming up, even like casually, it's just, it's just not gonna happen.
Yeah, it's a real challenge, isn't it? And it's, it's something which I think,
you know, we should all talk more openly about. I know I've made a conscious effort with the female
athletes I've worked with over the years to make that kind of conversation just normal.
Because it will have a big impact. And so actually, even being able to talk about it openly,
it can be, in a way, a really good beginning of accepting that that can happen. And then you can
get so right. So how do we manage that? You know, you know, how do we kind of deal with it? If it
does happen, because if you've got the comps are on the set, you know, there's a cadence to the
competitions that matches something similar, it can be really difficult. But coming back to your
earlier point, I think it's worth noting that, like you said, like that, I guess, at least my
coaching philosophy has been around this, that you can compete at the standard, if you can train at
the standard, and you can deal with the logistical elements of going to do that abroad, and you can
mentally deal with the fact that you're going to do it in a different space. But athletes typically
don't train at 8A plus sport routes, and then go to comps and can onsite 8C magically, it doesn't
jump that much. And so whether you're a Yanier or a Toby, or historically, like a Shawna, all of
these athletes, when you would see them in training, operating at or above world level, and,
you know, I mean, I think, you know, Tobes is a good example of what he does in training exceeds
what sort of competition and like an anecdote from this is really good is that I remember doing the
my first competition back after a period of leave was the Villa World Cup in Switzerland, and Toby
made the final there. So he climbed on four routes over two days of competition. And we went
training before flying home on the Monday, and some of the athletes did like a couple routes,
and they were like, well, we've got a competition next weekend, like we're going to save ourselves,
don't want to do too much. And I think Toby did either like 12 or 16 routes of 8B or up that day.
And he was like, well, I only pulled on four times over the weekend. Like, that's barely
anything for me. So it's interesting when you think about it in those in those contexts is for the
top athletes, the level of declining is not that difficult. But it's mentally draining to be in the
competitive arena and all that kind of stuff. And that's what I mean about your training standard
has to be there already.
Right. So like, World Cup climbs should not feel so difficult, basically.
Yeah, or at least, let's put it another way, if your training level is here, and you drop a little
bit, because of the situation, you could handle anything that you're going to face in a World Cup.
But I think that's where the, you know, and anyone who's been to B-Pump and stuff like that will know
this. Like those some of those boulders are ludicrously hard. I mean, the men in the World
Cups, you know, all climb like V14, V15, V16, like they're climbing those upper numbers, but they're
trying to solve these things in like five minutes. Right. You know, so it's a totally different
thing. And often people, I mean, I've had this in the UK, people have said, like, you know, how good
are these comp climbers really, you know, on rock? Like, what would they do on rock, really? I was
like, well, you see when they have the offseason, they go into the World Cup, and they're like,
you see when they have the offseason, they go and do everything, because it's not difficult compared
to what they do. And their standard is so high. And the same is true of the women as well. Like,
can you imagine what Yan Yu's project boulders look like in training? Like, really hard.
Yeah, I think sometimes we kind of forget that this is the first time they've seen the boulder,
and they only have five minutes. I feel like because a lot of times people are watching and
they're like, oh, I could maybe do that, either just because it like looks easy, or maybe they
really do think that they could do it if they like project it. But you kind of forget this is
their flash go. Yeah, yeah, totally. And I think now World Cups, the standards going up and up,
and it's difficult to put a boulder numerical grade on World Cup boulders because they're
stylistically so different. You know, but in a World Cup qualifier, you know, I mean, I wouldn't
want to upset the route setters by putting numbers on it. But, you know, they're pretty hard. But
then the semi-finals and finals levels, you know, they're really hard blocks. They're really hard
blocks. I doubt if you're getting on stuff that's less at the top end, maybe like Olympic level,
like underneath like V9, V10. I think that's probably like the minimum level. And you're
probably getting up to like V14. And these climbers are doing these in five minutes.
So, you know, and I guess that's where, you know, ever go and watch that video of Yanya climbing
Buegelheisen sit, that's AC. She looks like she's warming up, right? Or, you know,
Brooke Rabbit's did box therapy get downgraded? Is it V15 now or V16?
I don't remember.
Either way, do you mean like these people climbing incredibly hard that it's on another
level, they're such incredible athletes.
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so you eventually made the decision to leave as head coach.
How and why did you just make that decision?
I mean, it was a really tough decision, but GB climbing had this really ambitious set of goals
post the pandemic period, you know, that we talked about, like coming out of lockdown,
I would say possibly too ambitious with the resources that were available at the time.
And so the team and the management of the team, which I was obviously part of that, but ended up
kind of like spreading this resource like really thin. And it didn't feel like any one particular
aspect was enough of a focus that we could really improve things or take things forward in that area.
And I think that realistically that led to, I guess, real limitations.
And then that then led to us not being able to deliver in the way that we'd promised.
So I guess, you know, you have these big goals, you talk about you're going to go and come in and
make these changes, you know, big systematic change, big improvement for the athletes.
And then going down that line, the resources are not necessarily as much as you thought.
You're trying to spread things really thinly to cover all these different bases and invest
in lots of different projects. And that dilutes the quality of you really making a
difference to the athlete team. And I think that that really compromised for me a lot of relationships
that were really important to me in my role. And I think that that meant that the team itself was
losing a lot of credibility with the athletes. And that then led to relationships being strained.
You know, like for me personally, I was subject to quite a lot of poor behavior from the community
in the UK, if I was personally climbing in the gym, things like that, you know, people coming up to
me and wanting to have conversation, you know, no boundaries, like this person's, you know, in on
their personal time, but I want to come and give them my opinion on what do you be climbing, should
or shouldn't be doing or, you know, kind of like internet forums with really negative, you know,
quite toxic behavior. And I think that the strain on the relationships meant that I was feeling
quite dissatisfied with, you know, with the work and with what we were trying to achieve. And
I'm somebody who works through a certain set of principles and I've got pretty high standards
when it comes to the work that I want to do. And I just felt that through no anyone individuals, but
that had become, you know, unsustainable for me, the challenges of being in that space for that
amount of time, given that I wasn't satisfied with the level we were operating at, with that
it wasn't aligning with my principles or values professionally. And I think that there was just
this mounting pressure from the community, like ramping up like all of the time to the point where
the scrutiny on myself and the other coaches was so much that it was almost unbearable at times.
You know, that was really difficult. And I think, you know, it's important that I'm honest with you
about it, you know, talk to it, because I think when you're a national team coach, you really are
in the firing line, you are held to a standard that not a lot of other coaches are, you know,
in the UK. There was all sorts of like practice from other coaches that you'd consider not
necessarily super professional and poor. But if you're wearing that, you know, the GB jersey,
like everyone is coming for you if you put a foot wrong. And that would include in the professional
capacity, but then also even your personal life, like it was becoming a huge challenge.
So I think for me, I got to a point where I made the difficult decision to step down,
not for any other reason other than for me personally, it wasn't
great for my health, my physical and mental health. You know, and also as well, like I always
viewed myself as just being a custodian of that role for a period of time, you know, like I knew
I was never going to be the head coach forever. And I just wanted to do the best job that I could
with the period of time that I was fortunate enough to have it. And I didn't feel like I was
doing my best job because of the constraints of everything around that coupled with like, you
know, a huge amount of declining health and stress related to it. I just was like, actually, this is
this is the right time for me to leave. It was a really difficult decision, but I think it was I
think it was for the best for myself. Yeah. When you say like the community pressures that like,
fans or like parents or athletes, just everything. I think a bit of a mix really. And I think that
what happens quite a lot of the time is people are not really in possession of the full set of the
facts. They're in possession of their perspective. And I guess a bit like politics, right? Like,
when a perspective is ingrained and communicated routinely like that, people believe that that is
the truth, but actually it's not the truth. It's just a perspective. And when you don't have the
opportunity from maybe your seat as GB head coach to really communicate exactly this is the situation
or do it in the same way, you just find that the narrative just becomes totally negative,
and totally misrepresentative of the situation. And that was happening in particular through the
community of personal coaches, of parents, of athletes as well. And so all these people are
kind of primed to sort of like think of it negatively. So, they're coming into training
sessions and people are carrying all of this in with them, their frustrations, their upset,
their kind of baggage from outside. And so it meant it was really difficult to have really
quality relationships and coaching is a relational role. So that was really, really difficult. And I
do think that some of the behaviour individuals in the community is really not cool, is not helping
as GB move forward. And in many ways, it's fantastic the athletes do as well as they do,
given that context. But yeah, it's really tricky. And yeah, I've definitely had interactions with
people from the community in Great Britain, where those people have just totally overstepped the
boundary. And I realised actually, to be honest, that you're basically being criticised by people
with less experience than you, as if they know better. And that's how you're going to be able
to be better. And that's hard. And to no means am I saying I was right. I'm very open to that,
that I may have been wrong on certain things. But I think when you're interested with that
responsibility, you've applied to that role, you know, you've been better and you've taken that
and you're really trying your best, but everybody else just wants to kind of tear it down. It's not
the easiest situation to be in. And you know, that's the that's kind of like the complex
landscape, I think. And to be honest, I think that's also true of elite sport generally,
but definitely in the UK. And I think that like Gareth Southgate, who was the former England
manager, summed it up really well for me when he said, you know, I'm involved in a sport that I
love, but in an industry I hate. I wouldn't say I hate the climbing community, but I'm involved
with sport that I love, but in a community that's extremely difficult, extremely difficult. And I
think that makes it hard to do your good work. I mean, not to like, dig up past trauma or anything.
So like, if, if it's a if it's too much, just let me know. But is there anything you remember
hearing someone say, either like online or some something that someone said to you in person that
you remember was like, oh, this was like a really personal attack or like something that was really
hard to hear? I mean, I mean, the thing is, is I'm always open for professional criticism
in the right context, because sometimes you have to acknowledge that you might not have all the
answers and you need to be open to it. I think when that's like, you know, imagine like,
you know, like, like your cup, like your capacity to like absorb that feedback is like this big,
it felt like every day people were coming in like pouring like a bucket into this, and it was just
flowing over the top. So your capacity to really absorb that starts to dwindle. And so I think that
in terms of people saying things, I never had an interaction with a parent where they said, you
know, this is something that could be better at GB climbing. And I thought, I totally disagree with
you. I was like, I actually agree with what you're saying. I totally agree with that the premise of
that. The way that you're going about it, I don't agree with. And so yeah, there's like a lot of
like stuff on the internet and you know, people sort of saying like, like, Tom Greenwell is a
useless, you know, head coach and easy competent and you know, all that kind of stuff. But that
didn't really bother me. But there was definitely one instance when I was actually climbing with
two of the other coaches in a climbing gym, and I was on the kilts board, right. And I went to do
a move and all the lights changed on the board at the time. And I was like, oh, that's odd.
And then like, I got on again, tried another boulder problem and the lights changed again.
And this happened like routinely and what was happening is a member of the community was stood
there with their phone and they'd like changed the boulder problem when I was on it.
So crazy. Oh my god.
And they were thinking this was kind of like cool and like we're sticking it to GB and all this
kind of thing. And I actually saw this person in the climbing wall later and they thought it was
funny. They're like, how funny was my joke? I was like, this is not, you know, this is not funny.
And so I guess there's that and I think there's a lot of people out there looking to like
discredit you professionally. I've heard other personal coaches saying like, oh, he doesn't know
what he's doing and all that kind of thing. And I guess it's really tricky. And you know, imagine
most people being in a position when people come into your workplace to criticize what you're doing
directly. It's a pretty tough gig. But that being said, there is a lot of positive stuff out there
as well. And there's a lot of very positive parents and athletes who are super supportive
that I had great relationships with. And what was really lovely is I remember coaching the junior
team and Nathan Phillips won the first gold medal in junior bouldering in Laval. I think that was
like 2015 or something. And what was really beautiful is the last comp I did was when Toby
qualified for the Olympics in the same city in Laval 10 years later. So it kind of felt like this
like perfect like loop of time. And I'm genuinely really grateful for all the positive stuff that
I've experienced. I've experienced a lot of negativity within that role, but I've also
experienced a lot of great moments in particular with athletes, and in particular with parents
who've been very supportive of me. And actually, I wouldn't I wouldn't change that for the world. So
I guess like, good, some really big highs and some pretty deep lows. But I think that's part of
part of the the challenge. I think if you're a national team coach, especially the head coach.
Yeah, geez, I mean, I'm sorry to hear about that. That's like, kind of wild. But yeah, I guess that
kind of comes with anything competition climbing related. There's a lot of there's always a lot of
talk online and negativity. And it's like kind of a weird experience to public be like publicly
doing your job like that and have everyone comment on how you're doing your job. So yeah, definitely
or I guess at least measure measuring you by an outcome which you're not fully in control of,
you know, I think is maybe the worst thing. But it's really interesting point you say that because
I think that over the last few years, there has been a very positive movement towards more awareness
around mental health in particular for athletes. You know, and athletes may be not being treated
like these robotic beings that just come out and perform and that's it, you know, they're people with
real lives and emotions and feelings and other priorities as well. But I really feel that, you
know, when we talk about coaching as a subgroup of high performance sports, well, we very rarely talk
about the pressure that the coaches under and the scrutiny that they're put under to deliver as well
because it is just, you know, just as frequent and just as big. And, you know, I think also when we
think about coaching, especially elite level, the blueprint we have of a coach is, you know,
someone who never shows vulnerability, who's relentless and tireless in their commitment,
who sacrifices everything for the, you know, success of the athletes that they work with.
And actually, I'm not entirely sure that that blueprint is the most healthy blueprint to have.
I mean, there's a really good example of I think it was in the 2016 Rio Olympics,
GB England, GB, yes, a Great Britain hockey women's coach, Danny Carey suffered a heart attack
for a while at the games and then got out of bed to go back to coach like this, like last game.
And this was, this was herald as this like heroic act of incredible coaching. Whereas actually you
look at that objectively and think, like, realistically, is that what we expect people to do?
And from my experience, coaching is not a nine to five, but it can become, you know, all encompassing
at the end of the spectrum. And I think that when you look at divorce rates, burnout, mental health
challenges, those things are all really prevalent in coaching. And I think we could all do a lot
better as a community to, I guess, at the minimum offer a degree of empathy, so that people who are
giving so much energy to try and help others achieve, but also understand that those individuals
can't be on 24 seven on coaching, like they need time off, they need to have downtime, they need to,
you know, avoid burnout. And that's definitely something that I unfortunately had to learn the
hard way through this job. But I really want to be an advocate moving forward for coaches to,
you know, talk more openly about the challenges that you experience professionally,
and how that impacts you personally, and that we should be prioritizing, not only athlete
well-being, but coach well-being as well within the arena of high performance sport.
What were the hardest parts of coaching for you? Other than, I guess, like the dealing with the
community issues?
I mean, I think that definitely as an international coach, you know, the season's pretty long, but
from kind of like April time through to October time, you know, you're on the road a lot. And so
that has a huge impact on your, you know, your social connections, on your family life. You know,
you miss birthdays, you miss weddings, you miss family vacations, you know, and it's a very
relentless schedule. And so I think that two things, one, what it does is it takes away a lot of
opportunity for you to identify with yourself outside of your coaching role, which therefore
puts a lot of pressure almost internally on your sense of self as a coach, in terms of the results,
the team, how they perform. I think you can be judged quite transactionally, you know, in terms
of your effectiveness in your role, but also your effectiveness as an individual, you know, when
you're that tired and you've taken that many flights and you're exhausted, you know, you're
taking that many flights and you're exhausted. It's a very hard place to keep giving your energy to,
you know, to somebody else, you know, and actually, whereas like, you know, some athletes are like,
oh, it's really tiring going to a comp. That's like, yeah, but you're one person and you do one
comp, whereas as a coach, you do the comp for every single athlete. So you're switched on,
focused to exponentially longer. And then you're expected to be like, right, go to bed, back up
next day. And I'm just as focused as I was yesterday. So the, in terms of answering your point,
I think the hardest parts are, or at least in my experience, was not having much downtime to recharge,
but constantly being a position where you're giving your energy. And that doesn't leave much
leftover. And if you're not connecting socially with something that's outside of that, it's a very
high pressured space to be, I would say. Yeah, I actually didn't really think about how you kind
of have to be there for every athlete at every comp that they go to. That is actually a lot,
a lot to deal with. And like, just in terms of traveling, I know we talked a little bit before
we started this interview about my exhaustion with traveling, just for fun, even I was just traveling
by my own accord for fun. But it was a lot. So what were some of your like favorite and least
favorite moments traveling around on the circuit? Favorite and least. That's good. So I guess I always
was really, really fond of the summer period of lead World Cups in Europe, where you'd fly to
Switzerland to do Vilar, and then you do Chamonix and Branson like back to back, like being in like
the French Alps around that, you know, period of time or in Switzerland, you know, that's like a
beautiful period of time. And I often found the team were very close during that, we'd spend a lot
of time together. And, you know, we'd enjoy those spaces, you know, Chamonix is beautiful, like
you're competing underneath, you know, Mont Blanc, it's stunning. So I always have really fond
memories of that comp. I think what I have a lot of fond memories of are the little bits in between,
to be honest, you know, like a lot of times, people think of the arena and like that's where
I guess those memories come from. And undoubtedly, you know, Toby's performance in the VAL is one of
the greatest climbing performances I've ever seen in my 10 years doing this. It was phenomenal. And
I loved that experience. But as well as being there celebrating with Liam and Trist when he won that
comp, I also really loved seeing Toby have his first beer after that. You know, it seems so mad
that like you're there and there's this incredible world class performance from this young man. And
then three hours later, post-doping control, you know, you're having you within having his first
beer in a small pub, you know, Laval while you're having a pizza. And I think that's where there's
like such a human element to it when you're closer to it, like the back of house, like these ethics
are people. And some of those, you know, moments are really lovely. And, you know, I reflect back
on a pandemic, like we had a birthday party for Molly in training. And that was a wonderful,
you know, wonderful thing. And then I think about, I guess, again, like the team made me a birthday
cake when I was away, because my birthday is in July. So I was always away internationals.
You know, things like that were just wonderful, wonderful experiences. Some of the least,
least fun is when you miss a flight and you then like, Oh my God, I'm going to have to like now
wait in an airport for a really long time. I remember actually, I went to the Jakarta World Cup
on my own and I missed on my way back, I missed my connection flight and had like a 10 hour layover.
I always fly back from Indonesia like, Oh, just horrendous. I can also remember when Hamish won
his medal at the Moscow World Champs, the entire team had way too many drinks after that. I remember
the journey back home from that being particularly savage. That was definitely a real low point.
But yeah, when we're away traveling with the team, it's vast majority of it is really,
really positive memories. There's a lot of very cool folks out there doing that with those jobs.
And it's been a privilege to spend time with them. When is your birthday, by the way? My birthday is
also in July. Oh, is it? Oh, mine's the sixth. Oh, shoot. So close. The second. The second. Oh,
nice. I was kind of hopeful. Maybe we would share a birthday. That would be cool. That would be cool.
I mean, we'd have to celebrate from like other ends of the Atlantic. See, I can't come there.
You can come to the UK. I could. I can come to the UK. I was actually considering, but I'm
I'm not sure. Still considering. I'll let you know if I do. Yeah. Yeah. Well, coming for your
birthday would be a good time because it'll be the summer and it'll be much nicer weather.
I know. Yeah. Yeah. It's hard to leave the weather here. But yeah, honestly, like having a summer
birthday in July, like traveling around that time, doing comps, working. I can see how that would be
a tough time. How would you suggest to other coach to like help manage all that stress? Is there like
anything that you've learned in your time that really helped you manage the stress of
always being on the job? I mean, one thing I think is really maybe not maybe considered is that you're
performing as well as a coach. You know, so over the time, I got really good at developing like my
own routines. You know, I'd know I'm going to go in tomorrow. We've got a 12 hour day. It's going
to be baking hot, you know, so I need to be well rested, well hydrated and all that kind of stuff.
So in many ways, like a lot like an athlete would as well, like I would take care of my nutrition,
I try and get an early, you know, early sleep. I would stretch. I found a lot of that put me in a
very good mindset to actually undertake the job. And also some of that would then happen on the
other side as well. I would find ways to relax, whether it be like my own personal space and my
own time. So I think one of the big things is creating boundaries and being really clear with
your communication with them, with the athletes that you work with, you know, make them aware that
at this certain point, you're switching off. And unless it's a total emergency, you can't contact
me until this time. Protect the time for yourself. I think that's a really important thing. I think
also as well, if you're an international coach and you travel around a lot, make time for you to enjoy
some of that experience for yourself. You know, connect with some of the coaches if you want to,
have friends who maybe you can meet, go and do something different. Because I think when it all
becomes about the arena, I think you can maybe lose some perspective or you're always switched
on mentally, like the comps already begun in your mind, like a couple of days out or after when
actually it's good to find the switch off. But I think what's been really helpful for me is that I
have like drawn up over the last few years, like a really trusted group of people who helped me
problem solve professionally. And so they're always there if I need them as peers and as mentors,
and I can really go to them with challenges that I'm facing if I need to play catch with a problem.
So I've found that really, really helpful to just feel supported in the endeavor as well.
And sometimes also put some perspective on the thing.
So then looking forward into the future of the sport, you are still pretty involved.
Where do you kind of see the sport headed?
I mean, you know, it's really interesting. So I have a new part time role in the UK where
working with the coach development side of things. And we're currently going through this process
looking at these coaching awards where we train and thinking about in 10 years time from now,
we need to create something that will still be servicing the coaches of 10 years in the future
with the right information and right knowledge. And then it was like, all right, so what does
climbing, yeah, same question. What does climbing look like in 10 years from now?
And I think if we look back at where it's come from to where it is at now, that can give us
some idea of where it's going to go. And so firstly, if we look at competition climbing,
often it was like, I would say that the people were still athletes 10, 15 years ago, but,
you know, probably climbed outside a bunch as well. Training was less formal, less structured.
You know, often like going to the World Cups would include like loads of other things alongside it.
Whereas now we have this group of athletes who are very dedicated professionals. And I think that
when we look at maybe even things like the location of IFSC competitions, where they've moved to,
just how successful things like Paris were in terms of the global positioning of the sport,
that's all happened in a very short space of time. And the money investment that's coming in is
really, you know, increasing that. So I think that if we move forward 10 years from now,
I can imagine us being even more professional than we are now having, you know, like, yes,
the World Cup circuit, maybe like a private, I don't know, like a private sponsored teams
circuit. Like I can imagine that running alongside like a professional league alongside IFSC stuff.
I can imagine. What would that look like?
You know what I was thinking about this the other day, imagine like you like Formula One,
you've got like Red Bull, like as a team and you race for Red Bull. Like, I mean, if you look at
Red Bull's roster of athletes right now, imagine what the Red Bull team for climbing would look
like. It'd be pretty phenomenal. And then you could have like the added ass team or, I don't know,
yeah, that kind of thing. You know, so I can imagine something like that being potential.
I think that climbers can stand to be full time professional athletes and earn good money from it,
working with sponsors. I think that most national teams will probably have like elite centers,
you know, like the one the US is going to build in Salt Lake. I can imagine that being a real
professional thing. And I can imagine more and more athletes getting, you know, an experience
where they're part of a really well-funded team set up, where they get all their sports,
medicine needs covered and things like that. I can imagine we can really be there. And so I guess
more akin to like, I don't know, let's look at tennis, an example. Like, why, what would it take
for climbing to be like tennis? Like, would we be there in 10 years? Maybe not, but it could be big
like that.
Yeah, I guess in regards to tennis, I not like some I recently watched a video about money in
tennis though, and how expensive it is, how expensive it is for athletes to get into it who
aren't already like at the top. So it's not all sunshine rainbows in the tennis world.
Oh, no. Yeah, no, totally. You're totally right. And I think that that always exists. Like, the
money in elite sport is normally available for those who are already succeeding. And the journey
to get to that is you have to break into that group before you have any of that. And that's
that's like universally a thing. I suppose that's just different. Maybe in team sport, where you can
get picked up and you're like in a team's academy from earlier, maybe that's different. But I think
for individual sports, like you're definitely right there. I think that's the way it is.
I think it's a long journey to the top and it's hard work.
Yeah. So sometimes I just kind of wonder like maybe this is just how sports are like, it's not
necessarily just a climbing issue where there's not enough money in climbing. But overall, it's
just kind of like that for all athletes. But maybe it's more just like, even for the top athletes in
climbing, there's not that much money in the sport for them.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess like, maybe that maybe like for Yanya, maybe Yanya is making
good money. I don't know. I'm sure she is. But yeah, you're right. It's the preserve of a small
few at the moment. And I guess that will cascade down a little bit. But like you said, maybe not
to the extent we would like to think it would do. But I mean, you know, going to a World Cup
is different to performing at a World Cup and performing at a World Cup is different to consistently
winning World Cups. You know, so I guess the distribution is largely driven by performance.
So I guess that's the same anywhere, all industries.
I was just thinking there was a sound bite I got from last interview that really stuck with me.
Literally. You said that you like to coach people to their own individual Olympics.
Yeah. And yeah, to be clear, like that's not even mine. I stole that from a swimming coach who's
very famous in the UK. But I like the notion of every individual, you know, not all athletes are
going to do what Toby's just done. Like it can't happen. But all athletes can reach their own
personal potential. You know, they can be the best that they can. And I really enjoy the process of
finding out what makes an athlete work and tick and how can we, I guess, go through a process of
creating their own individualized approach so that they can be the best version that they can.
And for some, that might be a World Youth Championships. For some, that might be a
European Champs or European Cup. Or, you know, for some, it could be like a World Cup. And
I think that as long as that individual is like being the best that they can be as a coach,
your job is to help them find that and bring that out of them. And if you can do that for everybody,
everybody's reached their potential. And it should never be viewed as a failure
because you never won a World Cup, that your career was a waste. Like for some people,
that isn't possible. But if you were the best you could be, then I think that that's really,
really powerful. And, you know, not to be underestimated, you can be a great ambassador
and role model for your country without winning a World Cup. You know, and I think that actually in
the UK, we've got many examples of phenomenal athletes that maybe didn't win Olympic medals
like Toby's just done, but will have inspired others through, you know, consistently being
representing their country, through consistently working hard and, you know, being out there doing
their thing. I think it's really cool. And so I enjoy helping everyone reach that.
I don't know. I guess it resonated with me because sometimes I think about the athletes who maybe aren't like constantly winning or like podiuming or anything like that. I'm like,
what keeps them going? Like, what is the point? But yeah, there's much more to the sport than just
winning a medal or like winning a prize or something like that.
Yeah. I mean, in a way, like, you know, if you look at some of the really big World Cups, you
could have like 120 athletes in the gendered field. Does that mean that there is one winner and 119 losers?
No. You know, and so I think that's where elite sport is quite brutal.
You know, but I think that all athletes want to feel like they're progressing, they're evolving,
you know, that they're delivering the best performances that they can.
I think what's just brutal about competition is there is like a ranking sheet. So you're
automatically compared against everyone. So you have to be very mentally robust to be in that space
repeatedly. You know, and also it's, you know, did I make the semi-finals or not? Did I make the final or not?
He or she did and I didn't, you know, that's all pretty, you know, common for athletes to experience highs and lows with that kind of thing.
You know, but for some, I want every athlete I've ever worked to look back on their career
and go, you know what, I did the best I damn could. And I was happy to, you know, to step away from it at that point,
being like I've trained my hardest, I was the best version of myself, and I represented my country really, really well.
And, you know, for some of those athletes that will mean winning medals and for some of those athletes, it will mean not.
But that doesn't mean their endeavor is any less worthwhile.
Yeah, definitely. Okay, so I guess going back a little bit to yourself, anything in the future you're particularly looking forward to?
So, well, firstly, I'm just recovering from my knee surgery, which we talked about a little bit offline before we began this.
So I'm looking forward to being fully mobile again, in the first and foremost.
But I think, you know, professionally, I'm looking forward to doing more private coaching.
I've already been back doing that for a few months, like globally, which has been really good fun.
I'm looking forward to doing some more consultancy stuff and working with Mountain Training here in the UK to help coach education.
But I'm also working on a service for coach mentorship along the lines of what we discussed earlier with a sports psychologist.
So I'm really hoping that as we go forward, we can offer more support to coaches out there
to help them navigate the difficult topsy turvy world of being a professional coach in climbing.
And hopefully through that, help more people to live their best, the best life.
But also, I guess, in a way, you know, we talked about coaching the athletes to their Olympics.
I'd like to support every coach to their own Olympics, whatever that might be.
Awesome. Okay. Well, can't wait to see that.
If you have any links that you want me to share or send out, send them to me and I'll put them in the description for people.
So I think those are the questions I had. I will go into the Discord questions again.
There are like a couple that maybe you have different answers for this time around. Not sure.
But yeah, so the first one, to what extent are national teams, actual teams versus just a random collection of strong climbers in the country?
And do you feel like it makes a difference? It's a good question.
I think it's probably different for each different nation as well.
I know that some nations, the athletes train entirely separately or in different squads.
And then when they come together, they come into the team.
And so I guess in that case, maybe they're made up of different training squads.
And so GB is a bit like that. But then I think France is also kind of similar.
But then the other end of the spectrum, you've got like an Austria or a Slovenia where they are more of a harmonious team and they spend a lot of time together and train together a lot more.
And that is like that. So I think it's probably a bit of a mix, really, to be honest.
I wouldn't say it's a one size fits all. But I would also say that obviously it's highly, highly competitive at this end.
So I think there is always probably going to be naturally those like slightly into team rivalries at times, or there's going to be like competitiveness and who's currently like the leading athlete in your team.
I think that's always going to be part of it. But I would say it's not random because all those people are there because they've been chosen because they're the best in their country.
But I would say the level to which that's a really cohesive team is probably quite varied.
As well as the other part of that question is, does it make a difference?
I personally believe that having a cohesive team set up is definitely facilitative of performance.
I think that the losses are dispersed in the same way the successes are dispersed and everyone feels the benefit of that.
I think it can be challenging to create a really harmonious team environment.
But I do think that when there's mutual respect for everybody and you're all there working for a common purpose, I think that's really powerful.
And I think it makes the difficult and somewhat lonely road of international performance climbing more bearable.
When you're spending it with people, you have close relationships with them.
Yeah, definitely. And then, yeah, just like the competitive aspect of it probably helps a lot as well in like pushing yourself further than you think you could on your own.
Yeah, yeah.
Last one, I guess. Most climbers now have their own private coaches.
Did that ever interfere with the work of you as the national team coach?
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely. It is really tricky.
I mean, often you can have maybe a different approach that you want to take.
But the personal coach has a different opinion.
And then it comes down to this jostling of, well, you know, I think my opinion is more than yours, you know, mine, yours.
So that was at times very difficult for me to manage. I've had plenty of experience of that.
And I think sometimes personal coaches can become incredibly anxious around an athlete coming into a different team space and you know how that will go.
So I think that that is a really that's one of the very difficult complexities that comes with being a national team coach versus personal coach is that you sometimes have to work with personal coaches as well and kind of broker deals and build relationships there.
And I've had some examples where it's worked really, really well as well. But yeah, for some where it's been really challenging.
Yeah. What are some of like the challenging examples or the ones where it worked out super well?
Yeah. I mean, I've had athletes been like coming into international events where my coach says that I'm not to warm up with you because you don't know what you're doing and things like that or things like that, which is really like not helping the athlete.
You know, or, you know, not me, but another coach had an athlete from GB said when I'm older, I want to be a coach, but not like you.
You're not really a coach and then named that coach. Yeah, we found that quite funny at the time.
But then similarly, there's been loads of positive examples.
I think the work with Toby and Erin in particular really stand out of the way that that's very collaborative.
And actually, when we look at which athletes have performed really, really well this last season, it's the ones where the personal coach, the athlete and then the GB coaches are all working towards the same thing.
And that same vision is for the athlete to do really well. So that's that's worked really well.
All right. Well, that's all the questions. Do you have any like final thoughts or words of wisdom you want to get out there?
Probably not. Just I really just to say thank you again for having me back on for Take Two.
Definitely. It's been really good. It's been really good chatting.
And I think really like when I first the one thing I would say is when I first started this, there was no pathway.
And in many ways, like I had to like make make my own future to get the opportunity.
And I can remember my dad saying like when I went to university, what do you want to do? And I was like, I want to get into coaching and I want to take the sport forward in my country.
So it's very rewarding to be in a position later when I can look back and say I went some distance to achieving that.
But I think most coaches now don't know where to start.
And I think sometimes you've just got to take it upon yourself to get out there and start.
You know, don't wait for it to be the perfect moment.
Like make it make that moment for yourself. You know, and now there's lots of people coaching and it's great.
You know, I think it's fantastic. More and more people can have access to a knowledgeable person to support them on their journey now.
So I think the more people coaching, it's great.
It's yeah, it's cool. It's cool. I enjoy it.
And I really enjoyed seeing how the sport's changed over the last few years.
And I'm really excited to see where it goes in the next 10 years.
Awesome. Great final words to end on.
Yeah, thank you so much for joining me again.
First episode I've ever had to redo. So thank you for taking the time.
You want to let people know where they can find you?
Yeah, I guess if everyone's interested in coaching, what's there more you can reach out to me.
Probably like my Instagram handle will be fine. Like green old Tom. That's my professional one.
Yeah, you can follow me there. Shoot me a DM if you want. I love talking to other coaches. That'd be great.
I think that's probably probably the best way right now.
Or you can email me at Tommy Green, all that gmail.com as well.
I'm more than happy to answer any questions.
All right. I'll put those links in the description.
Well, thank you so much for joining me. And it was great to talk to you again.
Yeah, thanks. Likewise, always a pleasure.
Thank you so much for making it to the end of the podcast.
Don't forget to like and subscribe if you enjoyed. Otherwise, you are a super fake climber.
If you're listening on a podcasting platform, I'd appreciate if you rate it five stars and you can
continue the discussion on the free competition climbing discord linked in the description.
Thanks again for listening.