The Battle To Find British World Beater

The British professional surf scene holds only a handful of surfers who can genuinely say that they are fully fledged pro's, earning a good living as sporting professionals. Tragic?  Yes I know!  Why is that?

Britain definitely seems to have the talent, I don't think that's the issue. And there's no way you can say that it doesn't have the waves - have you seen the turd-like conditions on the WQS?  Britain's the perfect training ground. So, what is? Is it the lack of financial support ?  It's expensive being a full-time athlete in these tough times, trust me, I know.  I've tried it myself.  Perhaps it's down to the lack of funding.  Surfing GB has very recently taken over from its not so successful liquidized predecessor, British Surf Association.  Or, is it the lack of structure put in place at grass roots level, guiding our own little rippers up through the ranks?  We seem to do well at Youth and Junior level in other international sporting fields.  We also convert grassroots success into senior professional podium places in other disciplines - so where are the British WCT (World Championship Tour) hopefuls?

Even though our lineups seem to get more and more crowded, surfing in Britain is still far from becoming a mainstream sport but! neither is BMX racing and we managed to get a gold medal contender at that in Beijing... until she fell in the final.

Take another sport that also lusts after a little more of the mainstream spotlight.  NOT football nor rugby nor even badminton - my God! how I love getting the lads round on a Saturday night... few tinnies... live coverage of the UK Intercounty Badminton Tour... "hands at the ready, shuttlecocks steady..."

British Swimming, 12 years ago, had its most unsuccessful and humiliating Olympic Games in decades, without a single medal returning to our shores from Sydney.  Following such a shocker down under, swimming in Britain took a severe knock, suffering a great loss of financial backing and cuts from the National Lottery and Sport England funding.  It had fallen off the deck, and was drowning miserably.  Cue new Australian performance director, Bill Sweetenham... "Coaches ya weak. Swimmers, ya weak."


Sweetenham, known for his hardline policies, took the broken machine that was British Swimming and rebuilt it bit by bit, employing structure and performance strategies left, right and centre.  Athlete protocols, performance protocols, training protocols, team protocols, warmup protocols, cool-down protocols.  You name it, it had a protocol.  You couldn't take a shit without having a target heart rate, lactate reading and negative split target, elevating effort throughout the back end, pardon the pun.  Using the World Class Potential and Performance Programmes, (WCPPP), as his vessel, Sweetenham's emphasis was placed upon athlete and coach education and development, guiding young talent, steadily through focussed, measured, contolled progress at each stage of the structure.  Not too dissimilar to what Ian Cairns, (Australian 70's surfing icon) seems to be doing in his role as Head Coach of the USA Pac Sun National Youth Surf Team.

Sweetenham and Cairnes have both achieved plenty of success with their Australian style winning formula. Sweetenham's first generation of young potential blossomed into a handfull of world class winners, led by Rebecca Adlington, double Beijing Olympic gold medalist and world record holder.  Similarly, Cairnes has produced some fine young world beaters of his own, with a lot of his focus paying off on the likes of; Kolohe Andino, Tanner Gudauskas, Evan Geisleman and the Coffin brothers, to name but a few.

Surfing GB has, without doubt, illustrated a clear intention to restructure and add definite direction to performance surfing in Britain, with their statement as national governing body reading:


'The body which represents surfing in Great Britain is undergoing fundamental changes with the dual aims of: -

i)      invigorating, inspiring and connecting with the British surfing population, and increasing participation across all age and ability levels throughout the country, and...

ii)    implementing performance development strategies with the view to producing a British World title contender within the next 10 years.

With a new team of experts; Nigel Semmens, Performance Director, backed by coaches; Joey Burran- ex-Pipe Masters Champion, Russell Winter- most recent British WCT qualifier and the Geordie giant himself, Sam Lamiroy- ex-British number one, it looks as though Surfing GB has some great experience, knowledge and understanding to take British surfing to the top.  I'm sure if, 10 years ago, you'd have said that come 2012, Great Britain would have one of the strongest swimming teams contending for gold medals at the London Olympics, I, along with most, may very well have laughed. Sweetenham managed it. Let's see if Slater's knocked from the top by one of Britain's best because, let's be honest, he'll still be winning world titles in 10 years time.

Here's a very informative video that instantly reminded me of Sweetenham's coaching style. Ian 'Kanga' Cairns analysing and feeding back to Tanner Gudauskas.