Noel Donaldson - What it takes to win Gold. How Australia and New Zealand create rowing champions 🏅​

In this video, Rowing Great Noel Donaldson highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the Australian and New Zealand pathways for rowing success. In this 1hr13min session, Noel shows how two countries develop their athletes so they can achieve Junior, U23, and Olympic/World Championship gold medals.

Noel has spent over 40 years developing high-performance athletes in both Australia and New Zealand his medals include 7 World Championship gold and 2 Olympic gold.

Noel's professional roles include high school coach, elite development manager for U21 and U23 for Rowing Australia, Coach of the Oarsome Foursome, Australian head coach, High-Performance Director at Rowing Australia, and Men's Head Coach. Head Coach for men's sweep at Rowing New Zealand.

The lessons in this session can and should be applied to all levels of training from school and club to high-performance programs. Whether you are self-coached or the head of the program, this session highlights the path from slow to fast.
Noel discusses:
  • Culture, positives, and negatives of each country's approach.
  • Recruitment, what to look for
  • Governance
  • Centralized vs. Decentralized training
  • Equalization of opportunity for clubs and schools
  • Training methodology
  • Volume, time efficiency, and consistency
  • The importance of minimizing travel time
  • Coaching
  • Athlete performance support
  • Developing athletes (physical, time management and upskilling)
  • Benefits of data collection to manage athlete welfare
  • Planning for the season, communication and execution
  • How to retain athletes with your program
  • Weekly training load