Je­lani Beck­les

World 400m hur­dles cham­pi­on Je­hue Gor­don, who trained at the Michael John­son Per­for­mance (MJP) clin­ic ear­li­er this year, has paved the way for 30 T&T coach­es to ben­e­fit from this elite pro­gramme.

Two cer­ti­fied strength and con­di­tion­ing spe­cial­ists rep­re­sent­ing the MJP, Lance Walk­er and Bri­an Abadie, are cur­rent­ly in T&T to pass on their wealth of knowl­edge to lo­cal coach­es. The three-day work­shop, put on by MJP in col­lab­o­ra­tion with bpTT, the T&T Olympic Com­mi­tee (TTOC) and the T&T Par­a­lympic Com­mit­tee (TTPC), which start­ed on Tues­day con­clude to­day. The pro­gramme is fo­cus­ing on train­ing tech­niques to im­prove agili­ty, speed, strength and sta­mi­na.

Some of the coach­es and ath­letes ben­e­fit­ing from the work­shop are Olympian Cleopa­tra Borel, for­mer na­tion­al cy­clist Clin­ton Grant and for­mer long jumper Wen­dell Williams, who took part in the 2000 Olympic Games.

Walk­er, who is the for­mer as­sis­tant strength and con­di­tion­ing coach of Na­tion­al Foot­ball League (NFL) team Dal­las Cow­boys, is al­ready look­ing for­ward to re­turn­ing to T&T say­ing: "This bet­ter not be a one-off thing."

Walk­er said that this is a step-by-step process for long term de­vel­op­ment which is in line with TTOC's long term goal of the win­ning atleast 10 gold medals in the 2024 Olympics.

Walk­er was im­pressed with the en­thu­si­asm of the coach­es and said he is al­so learn­ing from the T&T coach­es.

"It is a give-and-take sit­u­a­tion, there are a lot of great things go­ing on in T&T."

T&T's World cham­pi­on Gor­don was im­pressed by the state of the art fa­cil­i­ties dur­ing his stint at MJP.

"I was a bit jeal­ous to be hon­est, I would like to see those fa­cil­i­ties in T&T, " Gor­don said. "The staff was very friend­ly and ac­co­mo­dat­ing and it was re­al­ly ex­cit­ing to meet Michael John­son."

John­son, a for­mer Olympic cham­pi­on and world record hold­er, who was well known for his unique up­right style of run­ning, found­ed Michael John­son Per­for­mance (MJP) in 2002.

Ath­letes of the NFL and the Na­tion­al Bas­ket­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (NBA) in USA, the Pre­mier­ship in Eng­land and Olympic ath­letes from around the world have ben­e­fit­ed from MJP.

The MJP Cen­tre head­quar­ters in Dal­las, Texas, has the lat­est tech­nol­o­gy and equip­ment in a 24,000 square foot premis­es. The cen­tre fea­tures a re­sis­tance train­ing area which in­cludes the lat­est Keis­er strength and re­sis­tance equip­ment and a phys­i­cal ther­a­py and in­jury re­hab cen­tre fea­tur­ing a Hydrowox un­der wa­ter tread­mill and re­gen­er­a­tion pools.

Dr Ian Hy­po­lite, Gor­don's coach, is al­so very pleased that the pro­gramme has come to T&T, but knows fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance is re­quired for a fa­cil­i­ty such as the MJP, to ex­ist in T&T.

"Fi­nanc­ing is im­por­tant, some of the equip­ment is ex­pen­sive," said Dr Hy­po­lite, who was se­lect­ed as the 2013 Coach of the Year by the North Amer­i­can, Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean Ath­let­ics As­so­ci­a­tion (NACAC), ear­li­er this month.

Bri­an Lewis, pres­i­dent of TTOC, spoke high­ly of the leg­endary ath­lete say­ing, "Michael John­son knows how to win medals. Michael has 13 gold medals."

Lewis, in dis­cus­sion with John­son pre­vi­ous­ly, said the for­mer 200m and 400m star, was glad to help the T&T ath­letes and coach­es.