Inside Track is pleased to offer a new section, Women On Track, dedicated to the needs of women in athletics.  Why is this needed?  Because female and male athletes have some significant differences, which, although observed repeatedly by good coaches, remain largely undocumented and under discussed, certainly in an athletics specific context.  Less good coaches just ignore gender and even take pride in “treating everyone the same”, with the concomitant danger of seeing aspects of gender difference as individual quirk or even deficiency.  Meanwhile female teen drop-out continues apace and systemic under-achievement is tolerated.

Sadly sport governing bodies are not compelled by funders to ensure that inequality of outcome for disadvantaged groups,  whether they are competitors, coaches, decision makers or employees,  is researched and eradicated. This puts women at a systemic disadvantage in all spheres, and nowhere is this more starkly illustrated than in the 100m.  In an era when British male sprinting has, until very recently, attracted headlines and stellar expectations, British female sprinting has languished and stagnated.

The easy answer is to say “Well, the talent’s just not there”, but that is a monumental cop out.

Let us consider the average world ranking of our top three 100m sprinters from  2000 to 2009.

• Male average        27
• Female average    74.33

In 2004 Abi Oyepitan made a breakthrough, achieving 11.17 for 28^th in the world.  But injury swept her away again,  and the same fate befell Laura Turner (11.19, 34^th) and Montell Douglas in 2008 (11.05 for 17^th).  (Abi’s coach, Tony Lester, points out that she ran the second fastest British 200m of all time in 2004, but that this mark has been overlooked.)  Hopefully all three will be back to their brilliant best in future.  But this discussion  is not about individuals, but about attempting to discern the underlying factors that make success for British women  that much more difficult.  As the following graph illustrates, the situation in 100m clearly shows a significant trend which started in the early 80s and lasts to this day, over and above the cyclical ups and downs that all events are prone to as talented athletes come and go.   In other words there is systemic disadvantage if you are a British female sprinter.

Graph 1. Top ranked male and female 100m performances expressed as points (IAAF Scoring tables)

Graph 2 Points total of 1^st, 5^th and 10^th ranked British marks at 100m, M & F

Tony Lester, UKA National Sprints Coach (among athletes coached; Roger Black, Mark Richardson, Marcia Richardson, Marlon Devonish, Abi Oyepitan, Kadi-Ann Thomas,  Nicola Sanders) is a gender sensitive coach who has observed gender difference with interest over many years. He makes these points:

• Women can lack the required work ethic.  This takes time and attention to instil.
• Coaches of females do not give enough work.  Neither do they ask questions of more experienced coaches.
• There is often a need to adapt coaching style for women; it pays great dividends to be a good listener.
• Its crucial to work at the coach/athlete relationship, to understand their personality and develop mutual respect, especially with women.
• There can be a female propensity for injury. For example, Abi Oyepitan has an extremely slight basic skeletal frame.  The balance between maximizing training load and injury prevention needs to fit her particular susceptibilities.  It has taken time to understand her individual needs. The withdrawal of funding when an athlete is injured is a major handicap.
• There is a need for more good female coaches to nurture girls through the teen years.  A woman is more likely to empathise with young girls going through maturation.
• It’s particularly important to work on the self-belief of female athletes.
• A female sprinters’ forum would be a good way of getting the athletes’ perspective.
• Its ridiculous how few women we’ve had breaking 23!
• There is a sub-culture of sexism and quick fixes in the sport.  There’s a knee jerk response that says “they’re only girls.” ( Tony has examined this response in himself.  As the father of a teenage daughter, he has challenged his own assumptions.  He invites others to do the same.)

Tony’s last point is the crux of the matter and could be part of the answer as to why there have been no projects to assess the causes of female under-achievement in events where this is long-term and obvious.   As human beings we all have blind-spots or even prejudices of some sort, but we all also have a personal and organisational moral duty to confront them, especially when those attitudes get in the way of our stated aims.   This is a crucial leadership issue for UKA and England Athletics.

Whilst Tony Lester’s name is known to almost everyone in the sport, it is likely that Madeleine Weston-McGovern (previously Cobb) is known only to a few.   As Madeleine Weston, she was an international sprinter across the late 50s, 60s and early 70s competing in Olympic, European and Commonwealth Games teams and numerous other international meetings, also contributing to world relay records. She has since coached for over 30 years, becoming a senior  coach (now L4)  in 1977.  She coaches sprinters and hurdlers up to 400, and has had athletes in all the major championships including the Olympic Games.  She coached Laura Turner from the start of her involvement in athletics until last year.  She feels she has been overlooked by successive administrations as a high performance coach.

Madeleine says “As an athlete I had competitiveness and aggression right from the start.   I  came from a hard social background in south London and my mother died of TB when I was 5.  Athletics enabled me to release that aggression and pain. As soon as I stepped onto a track I knew I would be successful.  I was always able to “focus” and was amazed to find as a coach that athletes could not do so.  So my first priority is to teach athletes how to focus and how to compete.   Questioning and discussion is also crucial.   Athletes need to question and to learn to be in control”.

Her response to the 100m statistics is

• Drugs have had some influence in depressing the perception of British female performance in the past
• Females are less competitive/aggressive than male athletes, so  mental application extremely important
• There is a longer transition to full capacity, five years of strength training needed.
• Laura always wanted to train hard but had no concrete ambition till  four years had passed. Then she got confident and ambitious.
• Coaches can be too impatient, coaching for the short term.
• Some want top athletes only.
• Female athletes do not get same level of support.
• Some coaches do not want to coach them as there is less recognition and money associated.
• Authoritarian coaching styles (the coach is always right and doesn’t need to explain anything), are particularly bad for women athletes.
• Finance: Women earn less in general and have fewer sponsorship opportunities. Therefore more likely to be working full time.
• Teenage girl dropout; causes not addressed.
• Competition structure; season too short.

What the athlete said about 100m disparity. (Abi Oyepitan, coached by Tony Lester)

• Women more afraid of pain, they have to learn how to work hard.
• Can be less competitive in training.
• Don’t always know what it takes to get to the top due to lack of role models.
• More bothered by relationship issues in training group. This can affect the quality of training.
• More complicated to coach as a result.

Conclusions:

• Coaches  need to examine any hidden assumptions about female athletes and look afresh at methods.
• Systemic disadvantage; own it; analyse it; beat it.  Individuals can contribute at all levels, but needs to filter down from the top for sustained impact.
• Focus on long term strength and conditioning.
• Quality coach/athlete relationships based on active listening are crucial.
• Acknowledge that female success can take longer and plan for it.
• Know the basics of mental preparation, especially general confidence and self-esteem building.
• Project to address female teen drop-out required from grass roots.
• More female coaches needed. (England has a project for this)
• Research needed on injury patterns in elite female athletes.
• There is an urgent need for a fit for purpose (performance related) competition structure for both sexes; particularly for girls to aid staying motivated through difficult transition to full athletic maturity.

NOTE:  Much of the above is taken from a paper prepared by Gwenda Ward for the recent International Festival of Athletics Coaching.   It will be continued soon.

Posted by Gwenda Ward on Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 in Women on Track