The Track and Field Performance Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Craig Pickering – former Olympic sprinter, Winter Olympian in bobsleigh, sport scientist, and now Director of Performance Sustainability at Athletics Australia – joins the show to unpack what it takes to build a world-class sprint and relay system. He shares insights on athlete transitions, skill acquisition, and the systems driving Australia’s sprint resurgence.

We explore his journey from elite athlete to high-performance leader, how Australia has built depth and buy-in across its relay program, and why “training in chaos” has become central to his coaching philosophy. Craig also speaks on data-driven decision making, performance support, and the innovation shaping the next era of Australian athletics.

Topics:

• 0:02 – Craig’s journey from elite athlete to high-performance leader
• 5:25 – Injury setbacks, transitions, and entering the sport science world
• 9:27 – Moving to Australia & shaping Athletics Australia’s performance pathway
• 10:39 – Why Australian men’s sprinting is rising
• 13:51 – Building relay culture, buy-in, and structuring effective camps
• 24:10 – Relay coaching philosophy & the value of training under chaos
• 35:17 – Skill acquisition, decision-making & performance under pressure
• 40:50 – The evolving role of the modern coach and performance support
• 51:28 – Pathways Transition Program & developing future athletes
• 52:52 – Research, innovation & the next frontier for Australian athletics

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Marco Airale has been one of the fastest-rising elite sprint coaches of the past five years — and one of the youngest — guiding athletes like Reece Prescod, Andre De Grasse, Daryll Neita, Amy Hunt and others to fast times and global medals. With a background in physiotherapy and osteopathy, Marco blends therapy and coaching to maximise performance and keep athletes healthy. 

In this conversation, we discuss:

• Balancing step length and step frequency for each athlete
• Using intensive tempo to build fitness and resilience
• Managing training load and recovery across the season
• The role of warm-ups in preparing sprinters for peak performance
• Coaching sprinters, hurdlers, and relay athletes at the elite level
• Building and leading an international training group in Italy
• Preparing athletes for multiple rounds at major championships

Follow Marco on Instagram: coach_air_

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Being the Chief Physiotherapist to UK Athletics/British Athletics at the London Olympic Games (2012) is just one of many major roles that Gordon Bosworth has undertook during his professional career. He has played a key role in several national physiotherapy teams in winter and summer Olympic enabling Bobsledders like Kaillie Humphries to win Olympic gold.

Gordon who owns his own practice 'The Bosworth Clinic' in Oxfordshire, England extrapolated many key theoretical insights, assessment techniques, and treatment strategies.

Follow Gordon:
-https://www.thebosworthclinic.co.uk/
-https://www.instagram.com/thebosworthclinic

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Dan Pfaff is widely regarded as one of the most influential track and field coaches of all-time with over 50 years of experience. 

His thought provoking insights on sports performance concepts always come with a lot of dept and in this episode, He spoke about the rationale for having a holistic knowledge base and how coaches can develop that. From there, we dove into debriefing throughout the season so that coaches can make the athlete aware of the overall objectives to facilitate 'smoother' sailing throughout the year.

The horizontal jumps is an area where Dan has had a lot of success coaching athletes like Greg Rutherford, Fabrice Lapierre, and Kareem Streete-Thompson to name a few. He described how he navigates complex issues like approach accuracy and take off mechanics. The final big theme of the discussion was the necessity for mental resilience so that athletes can perform under pressure. 

Thanks to Dan for coming and sharing his lifetime worth of wisdom

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Coaches Jeremy Lyons, Gerard O'Donnell, and Aideen Synott have created a high performing environment for sprinters in Ireland to thrive both collegiately and post-collegiately. Through years of hard work and collaboration, they've enabled the likes of Sophie Becker, Cillian Greene, and Jack Raftery to become Olympians, European medalists, and household names in Irish Athletics.

In this episode, Jeremy and Gerard began by discussing how the club came to be and the characteristics they look for in prospective athletes before diving deep into the details of their annual training plan and how they manage volume, intensity, and density throughout the year, but perhaps what is most impressive and noteworthy, is how they adapt when met with constraints and opportunities in season.

If you like learning from passionate coaches who think outside the box to get the most out of their athletes, look no further than this conversation -- thank you Jeremy and Gerard.

Instagram: Dublin_Sprint
Gerard's website: https://www.godspeed.ie/

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CEO of Altis and world class sprints coach Stu McMillan came back on the podcast to talk about the importance of pursuing what is interesting to you as an individual, the core features of high level sprinting, trialing new methods with your athletes in an informed way, and much more.

I hope you enjoy. Give Stu and Altis a follow if you haven't already.
-Instagram: FingerMash and Altis
-Altis Website: https://altis.world/

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Rolf Ohman is a coach and innovator with over 35 years of experience in global sports such as Track and Field; he was a high level decathlete before beginning his coaching career. 

Between 2016 and 2017, he served as Head Coach for the Dalian Olympic Sports Center before becoming the Assistant Head Coach under Randy Huntington for the Chinese National Team in Sprints and Jumps, he then moved to a  Head Coach role at the Hong Kong Sports Institute until the summer 2023. Now, Rolf is coaching athletes like Jacob Despard - one of Australia's hottest prospect in 100m. 

He is also the renowned creator of the 1080 Technology, including the revolutionary 1080 sprint device and 1080 quantum.  In this episode, he explained some of the key pillars of his training philosophy such as periodization, weight room, and plyometric exercises -- particularly for elite/highly trained athletes. 

Thanks Rolf for such a thorough insight into your years of hard work.

Follow Rolf: https://www.instagram.com/tailwindsquad

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Jim VanHootegem has over 20+ years of experience as a collegiate coach working at schools like Texas A&M, The University of Oklahoma, and Arkansas. He has achieved great success with athletes like Fabrice Lapierre and Julian Reid -- both who have achieved medals at World and European championships. 

In his career so far, he has guided his programs to 12 NCAA team championships and 27 conference team titles as well as 72 All-Americans as an event coach, and another 55 honorees as a head coach. He currently serves as the sprints and jumps coach at South Plains Community College in Texas.

In this episode, Jim spoke about the foundations of his coaching philosophy, essential technical elements in the horizontal jumps, setting expectations for athletes, and much more. 

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Very few coaches can say they've had five athletes run 1.44 or faster in the 800m. Joseph Deng and Peter Bol (among several others) have risen to the top of the event -- thanks to the guidance of Justin Rinaldi.

His group named 'Fast8TrackClub' not only highlights their aim, but it matches how they get there -- they run fast, all year round, but the devil is in the details, so in this episode, Justin unpacked his coaching philosophy which was born out of his own experience as an athlete, and the mistakes he made along the way.

Follow Justin and the Fast8TrackClub
-https://www.instagram.com/fast8trackclub/
-https://www.instagram.com/jrinaldi800
-https://twitter.com/jrinaldi800

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Sports and Exercise physiotherapist, to many of Australia's top track and field athletes, Sam Leslie, discusses his multi-layered approach to rehabilitating and reducing injuries as well as improving event specific performance.

Sam, who works out of MyPhysio Evolution, in Melbourne Australia, takes an evidence based approach to help establish timelines for the returning to full health and selecting methods that match the athletes characteristics and the current stage of the injury among other variables. He explains the contents and application of direction-based programming which is a focal point of his practice throughout this episode.

Lifestyle and stress management was also a feature of the discussion, Sam is currently developing an educational resource and application called 'Peak' to empower athletes in managing their health and performance.

High Performance athletes Sam works with: Kathryn Mitchell (Javelin), Chris Mitrevski (LJ), Jake Penny (100m and relay), Jacob Despard (10mm and relay), Tess Kirsopp Cole (800m), Tori West (Heptathlon), Tayleb Willis (110mH), Mackenzie Mielczarek (Javelin)

You can find more about Sam and his work through his Instagram (below) and his articles on Simpli Faster:
-@samleslie_sportsphysio
-https://simplifaster.com/articles/author/samleslie/

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