Creating an athlete centered culture in a club

Martin Cross spoke to the chief coaches of two of Britain’s leading clubs – Ben Lewis at Tideway Scullers and Franz Imfeld at Molesey BC – to explore how they have gone about creating an athlete centered culture in their club.

In recent years, both men have noticed that the more traditional coach athlete relationship has changed from being mostly directive or authoritarian to a coach having to take a far more holistic view of their athletes’ needs. That has been in part driven by the need to balance work and social commitments against a training schedule that demands eight to 10 sessions per week. And while both men admitted that there may be a line to be drawn around just how much athletes are involved in the decision-making process – for example. in crew selection – there is no doubt that their athletes have far more say than perhaps used to be the case.