Giving our youth roots to grow and wings to fly

Foundations are key

The headline is a quote from Frank Dick. It is brought to mind because last week a young athlete said she wasn’t good enough to get to the Olympics.

At 13 years old, no she isn’t. What was disappointing was it appeared that any flame of ambition had been doused.

Nurturing ambition, giving the tools to help the athlete, and keeping them grounded enough to work towards their goals is a tricky balancing act.

• Too much hype and reward at an early age can lead to overinflated egos and a harsh bite of reality when coming up against senior competition.
• Too little praise and reward can lead to disappointment, burnout and stopping playing altogether.

This is why experienced coaches should be working with the junior athletes, it is at this age where the good (or bad) work is done. This has a lasting effect into the senior arena.

To all young athletes out there: “If not you, then who?” Make sure you try your best and it can be you.

Sophie training

Recent success for Excelsior athletes

Sophie Jefferson gained her first International caps earliers this month. She started for the England Hockey Under 18s against Scotland, and again against England Under-21s.

Sophie has trained with us for 4 1/2 years now, and is an example of what happens with consistent training, and attending to the little details.

The selectors omitted her from the England Under-16s squad 2 years ago, but Sophie carried on training hard despite that.

Anna Johannson competed in the Nations cup pony team for GB in Saumur, France and finished a repsectable 16th overall against Senior competition.

Anna Johannson

Anna has only recently started training with us, so we can’t take too much credit!

But, she does her homework consistently and has improved her structural integrity as a result.

Two ex Excelsior athletes became National Champions earlier this month!

Steve Turnock won the BUCS Javelin championships and Caitlin Evans Brand won the England Schools golf

Caitlin running

championship. Both trained with us quite a bit before going away to University/ College.

You can see Steve warming up here (one of the reasons he succeeds now is his underpinning athletic development):

“Hard work beats talent, when talent doesn’t work hard.”  is one of the mottos of the Excelsior Athletic Development Club  come and join us.