94 Forward has brought Shawn Clarke to Victoria a couple of times. Most recently to be part of our “Leadership Edge” sessions for coaches and sport leaders. During his visit Shawn presented to a room of cycling, triathlon, swimming and other coaches about lessons learned in cycling’s World Tour where he is a sport director (race coach) for Team Liv Jayco Alula. This team includes 71 athletes across its World Tour and development squads. Athletes are supported by over 100 coaching, technical support and administrative staff.
After sharing an overview of his team and his role within it, Shawn’s “coach talk” covered two big themes:
1 - the resources are staggering
The World Tour is like the Formula-1 of endurance sports. The resources that can be activated by the team and its technical and industry partners is significant. In this environment new knowledge develops rapidly. How Shawn and his coaching peers are able to tap into knowledge and resources to improve the athletes and their performance was eye-opening in comparison to what he’s experienced previously - which includes leading the national team at the Olympics and World Championships.
2 - sometimes being in the top 1% simply isn’t good enough
The non-selection conversations Shawn experienced were difficult, compounded by knowing he witnessed incredible humans giving everything they could, and doing everything right in order to “make it”. He took away many insights from Tim Jackson’s Leadership Edge workshop that he plans to apply immediately within the team.
The lessons learned in Victoria will improve how Shawn handles the most challenging coach-athlete conversations.
