HPTC Coaches Alison and Tony Fairweather and their Squad, Toea Wisil, Patricia Taea and Rodman Teltull, are on their way to Rio today. We are wishing you all the best of luck for your competitions and a great Olympic experience.
Despite all the negative news coming from Brazil, the HPTC Squad is looking forward to the Games and are sure the excitement will build up fully once they arrive and move in to the Olympic Village. They are looking forward to being around all the high profile athletes, watching and learning and getting into conversations with interesting characters. Even though it’s not the first Olympic Games for the coaching couple, it will be a whole different experience than in 2004. In Athens they had accompanied Sprinter Josh Ross, but haven’t been living in the Olympic Village. “2004 Olympics were great and we were always keen to go back and get another taste of the Olympics. As athletics coaches we know all the hard work that we and our athletes invest in the sports and we want to see our athletes getting on the track what we are trying to put in their heads. It’s like the reward for all the hard work that everyone has put in.”
With three of their athletes competing, they will be fairly busy getting everything in place. “The good thing is, they are all doing the same event, the 100m, but their races will be spread out over the days, so we will be able to prepare and warm up every one of our athletes individually and fully concentrate on them.” The first athlete to compete will be Patricia Taea, who will be running the Preliminary rounds on Friday, 12th August.
Toea Wisil from Papua New Guinea has achieved the Olympic Qualifier which allows her to skip the Preliminary Rounds and go straight into Round 1 Heats later that day. “with the Olympic Qualifier Toea is going to the Olympics feeling she has taken the next step up, she deserves and belongs to this competition.”
Rodman will run the Preliminary Round on Saturday 13th August in the morning and hopefully make it to Round 1 Heats in the afternoon. “We are quite happy with the competition schedule, the times are very similar to when we usually train, so we can stick to a routine and do everything very similar to what we normally do”, Tony said.
Alison as the track and Field Coach for PNG will also be responsible for Theo Piniau, who is running in the Men’s 200m, which are scheduled the days after the 100m races have finished. This way she will be able to give him undivided attention for his competition.
What can we expect from our athletes?
All three of them are looking to get new Personal Bests. Tony Fairweather has great expectations: “For Rodman I have got a time in my head, that he could run a 10.47s.” He believes in Patricia, whos current PB is 12.20s, to break the 12.00s mark. “I know she can do that.” He doesn’t really want to set a time goal for Toea, but he is convinced that the sensational run of 11.29s in Fiji can be beaten. She will be mixing with the best in the world which will allow her to gain a lot of experience and make her hungry for more. “The built ups during the season have been great, we haven’t fully peaked yet and if things go to plan Toea should ran faster and should go through a few rounds”, Alison said.
The Coaches are highly aware of all concerns and issues in Rio, their number one priority will be the athletes and their competition and they will 100% focus on that while they are in Rio. Still, the couple is also looking to visit some other competition venues during their free time and experience other sports during the Olympic Games.
After the Olympics the Fairweather Track Squad faces significant changes with three of their high profile athletes finishing their scholarships in August. The coaches are positive and said: “We hope the athletes get a new scholarship so we can keep working with them. We also have other team members in our squad who we will start working with again once we come back and prepare them for the upcoming season.
We wish you all best of luck and fast times!
