SPEAK to many of those involved in elite sport in Scotland and you will find them in full agreement that coaching is an area which has been too reliant on volunteers, and is in desperate need of investment and training.
It is an impression that made last year's launch of the Coach To Win programme, headed by Judy Murray and Frank Hadden, a timely initiative.
A year on and three more coaches are about to be signed up, to join the seven already involved.
The ne
w coaches are from rugby, swimming and tennis, with Graham Sheil, the national academy coach for rugby, Gordon Glasgow, swimming performance coach in West Lothian, and Marcel du Coudray, the Scottish tennis academy coach, all to take part in a programme run in partnership by Coaching Edinburgh, Edinburgh Leisure, the East of Scotland Institute of Sport, Scottish Institute of Sport Foundation and the relevant national governing bodies.
It is almost exactly a year since Du Coudray arrived from South Africa, via a stint helping to coach Nikolay Davydenko, to head up the new tennis academy, based at Merchiston and St George's schools in Edinburgh.
Despite losing Jonny O'Mara, the talented 13-year old from Letham Grange who decided that life away from home isn't for him at this stage in his young life, Du Coudray says that the first year of the academy has been a success.
"It's been a lot of hard work to set something like this up from scratch, but it's going really well," says du Coudray. "We had 12 kids the first year, six boys and six girls, and we're doubling the numbers for the next year. Which means an increase in the coaching staff, too."
In a reverse of the usual pattern, whereby talented young Scots have had to move abroad, there is likely to be an influx of foreign talent, says du Coudray, with players expected to arrive from Spain, Germany and Malaysia. "There is definitely talent in Scotland," he said.
"But I'm not sure there's enough to have a huge academy with only home-grown talent, so bringing in other players, from overseas, can help to raise the standard."
2012 in MacLean's thoughtsCRAIG MacLean is somebody who refuses to quit. A veritable pioneer, credited by Chris Hoy as being the cyclist who inspired him and showed him what could be achieved with equally large doses of hard work and ingenuity, 36-year-old MacLean learned last week that he will not be going to his third Olympics in Beijing.
Which would mean that Athens in 2004 – a huge personal disappointment for an ill and under-par MacLean – would prove to be his final Olympics. Or would it? "Well," says MacLean, "not necessarily." So London 2012, when he will be 41, is a possibility? "There's a possibility I could move to tandems," he explains.
Such a move would see MacLean piloting a tandem with a visually-impaired athlete, perhaps Aileen McGlynn, the multiple Paralympic medallist from Paisley. "I'd have to stop riding for the British (able-bodied] team, and I'd have to prove myself on a tandem," says MacLean. "It's just a possibility, but I don't have any desire to stop being an athlete."
Myles putting in the milesWHILE thoughts turn towards Beijing and Katherine Grainger's attempts to finally add Olympic gold to her collection of world championship medals, another Scottish rower is aiming this week to push her case to be considered the next Grainger.
Kirsty Myles, 22, began her rowing career on Edinburgh's Union Canal and competes in Britain's women's coxless four boat in the under-23 World Cup in Brandenberg, Germany, this week. Myles, the only Scot in the team, leaves today, with heats at the end of the week and the final on Sunday.
Having won a bronze medal last year – and with three of the four remaining in the crew – she has high hopes of gold. Studying physiotherapy at Oxford, longer term she wants to compete in the London Olympics in 2012.
At least, having started out on the pencil-thin canal in Edinburgh, she knows how to row in a straight line.
