Aussie coach comes to London

Early morning boaters on the river at Putney may have noticed lights burning in the office of London Rowing Club (LRC). It is Paul Reedy, LRC's new resident coach from Australia who is already into a routine of checking e-mail reports on the previous days training from members a squad of over fifty keen young rowers.

Paul comes with an impressive record of rowing in and coaching Australian national crews. He was a medalist at the '84 Olympics, '86 Commonwealth Games and '90 World Championships. He also has a long association with rowing in his home state of Victoria and at Melbourne University.

But Paul is no stranger to the British rowing scene and clearly has an affinity with the great traditions of the sport in this country. He is the proud winner of a Henley Royal Regatta medal in a Melbourne University quad-scull and he also reached the final and semi-final on different occasions in the Diamond Sculls.

At LRC, Paul says "We have got incredible resources from the Club and its history to draw on". He is keen to create a strong identity and to ensure that "everybody knows we are London Rowing Club". Targets for the coming season include being in the top five at the eights Head of the River Race in March with a second crew in the top twenty -- or quite possibly the top fifteen. "Then obviously we need to win a Henley medal", he says.

Paul is a Bachelor of Science in physiotherapy. He says "I don't want to get caught up in the old corridor consultations, but where it really helps me is that my observation skills as a physio transfer quite well to rowing". What he will be trying to do at LRC is to set up a system where everybody rows the same "so effectively we can slot anybody into a crew and they will go well. Then it comes down to physiology who gets in."

Despite his background of coaching national crews, Paul thinks that "coaching at club level is much more enjoyable". He recognises the situation where it is not possible for everybody to be a full time athlete. "We have to accommodate people having a proper job". An absolute requirement will be for everybody to show up on Wednesday nights and at weekends, and as long as people are training hard and reporting by e-mail what they have done Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, Paul says he will be "quite happy."