Peter Eriksson edit
Wed, Aug 02, 2023 4:10PM • 34:11
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
athletes, coach, training, work, peter, sport, team, paralympic, canada, olympic, paralympic athletes, athletics, change, learn, decision, sweden, performance, high performance, years, person
SPEAKERS
Peter Eriksson, Paul Barnett
Paul Barnett 00:00
Peter Erickson Good afternoon, and welcome to the great coaches podcast.
Peter Eriksson 00:05
Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.
Paul Barnett 00:07
Peter, we're going to talk all about your, your rich history and in Canada and, and Sweden and Great Britain, but perhaps something easy to get his going. Where are you in the world? And what have you been doing so far today?
Peter Eriksson 00:20
Well, I am in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. And I work for an Australian guy, Matt Favier, who is the CEO for the Saudi Olympic training center that started in December. And I'm in charge of performance and strategy. So we work with 20 different sports and around 197 athletes at a time, and it will rise to become around 350, probably by the end of this year. And what we tried to do here is to raise the standard of high performance with this training center in the funding that we allocate to the sports. So there has been a real different but very positive challenge. And, you know, it's the last thing I do in my career. So this has been a great finish. To do something like this. It's a fantastic sound.
Paul Barnett 01:15
Well, if this is the finish, can we go back to the start? Because I know you had two influential coaches very early in your career, Christy L'Oreal, and Hernan boots, if I've pronounced that correctly. And then, over your 50 years that you've traveled the world, I'm sure that you've met many other great coaches on that journey, and probably some coaches that aren't so great. But, Peter, from this perspective, what is it you think the great coaches do differently? That sets them apart?
Peter Eriksson 01:46
Well, I think great coaches listen a lot to other coaches to learn. And I think, great coaches are self learners, like you're always hungry to get an understanding on why is it that certain training have a certain impact? Or how do I do the periodization? Or how do I get a better peak for an athlete, you know, when it doesn't work?[PB1] [PB2] So what I did in the early stages of my coaching career after being an athlete was that I tried to find 10 best athletes in the area was in and then coach. And then I go and ask the athletes who's your coach and pointment to in person and I go up, hey, I'm Peter, I wonder if I can ask you a couple of questions. And then I started to drag that out as long as I could, by asking them about how do you do this? What do you think about the planning? How does your periodization look like? What do you focus on during a race and I went on and on until they get tired and left me right. But that's the way I learned and Gosselaar rail is an interesting thing. And I don't even think ghostie knew what gave me. But in 1980, I was apprentice coach going to Moscow, and I came in like, because somebody else couldn't go and go stay at that time was probably in his 60s, and I just came off my career as an athlete. And I know he was into coaching education. So I said to him, go see? Can I run with you every morning? When you go, Nana you running too fast? I say, No, I run your speed. If I can ask you a question. And he goes, Yeah, sure, no problem. So every morning for 30 minutes for three weeks, I got a lesson in something that had to do with training. So I can ask him, hey, because the What about spring train. And he was talking, he will talk about the same way every day, how it was, how it is and how he sees it changed by time. So after the run, when he had been doing his 30 minute speech with me, I went back and I wrote everything down, I still have to know. And then next day I go, What about interval training, same thing, how it was, so it is and how it's going to turn out to be. And that way I learned, I mean, fantastic amount by a man that has so much knowledge. And the same thing with goes to L'Oreal because through a girlfriend at the time, I met him and he was the head coach for the Swedish team in athletics. And I asked him to help me with my summer training because we had so poor coaching in general in Sweden, it was just all athletes that was retired and they gave them the job. And he looked at all my training, he said, Okay, took out a piece of paper, draw a line in the middle. And then he said, Tell me about your training, told him about the training. And then when I was done, he said, You see everything under the line here, which was probably 90% of what I said. That's a waste of time and the 20% but Oh 10% The bow is you did right. So now let's try to do do the right things for you. And he created the first time I saw a yearly training plan. Talk to me about periodization. And follow me the whole time. So that was the second guy that really kicked it off for me. And that's the way I continue tried to do the whole time by talking to people. But I also learned a tremendous amount from my athletes how they get, they gave me feedback, or I think I can do more of this, or I think that this doesn't work very well, and I need longer rest, or whatever it was. So I learned a lot from the athletes. And that was one of the reasons I started with double periodization, for example, in training for my guys, it was just listening to that is what I can do with training.[PB3]
Paul Barnett 05:48
PD track, and field is a very decentralized sport with athletes working with their own court coaches and support teams, you know, all over the country. So in this context, what's the role of a head coach,
Peter Eriksson 06:01
they're all over head coaches, to make sure that the athlete and their coach has whatever they need in order to improve the performance. So you're basically monitoring that. So you sit down with each one of the top athletes, that's what I did both in Great Britain and in Canada, and go through what the needs are and look at, well, can you get help from somebody else? Do you need help? Is it too little of support services? How can I support you, because having people in the same place, if it's not rowing, or swimming doesn't make sense in athletics, so you got to support them in their home, in their home environment. And you know, the athlete choose their coach, and they also should be responsible for the outcome. So it's trying to help them and their coach. That's why I think is the key to athletics. And specifically,[PB4]
Paul Barnett 06:56
well, you just mentioned Great Britain and Canada. We're going to get there. But I want to talk about I want to talk about what Christie said to you rep running too fast. Because speed is a theme that dominates your early life as an athlete you grew up in, you grew up in soda mom and Sweden, you went on to be a speed skater. And eventually you went to the World Championships. But speed has stayed with you. And what I'm intrigued to ask you about is what have you learned about decision making under pressure situations when people are performing at high speed?
Peter Eriksson 07:30
I mean, you get a you get to know your game, right?
First, you get to know what you're talking about and what you want to do. And you got to be synced up with the athletes in this case, in order to create plans for them both on a yearly basis on a race type of tactics as you're going along. And if it is, decisions that, you know, you can only train the tactics, but only have tactics all along, have a plan, do the track tactics, plan the tactics implement the tactics, because you learn from every session on different types of approaches. And then when it comes to the big game, where you really in the pressure situation. I'm just bystandard sharing being a cheerleader going out looks great. And the athletes is the one that have had learned them by that time to make those kinds of decisions. Because as a coach, I see you as a educator. And also you can be more of a consultant and advisor in the under the career of an athlete if the coach enough amount of years, right. And if you lead the whole team when it comes to decision making, you gotta be prepared. Understand the rules, understand the game, and make quick decision. Don't drag decisions, make the decision that could be good or bad, but you made a decision. So go for it.[PB5]
How he sees his role as an educator, and one of the key tasks is to create the right training conditions that allows athletes to make the best possibe decisions under pressure.
Paul Barnett 08:58
In 1982, you started coaching Paralympic athletes. Yep. Now 40 years later, you are the most successful para Olympic track and field coach in history. Now I'm intrigued because I am sure many of your Paralympic athletes have had to overcome significant barriers to make the track. And I'm wondering what your athletes have taught you about perseverance through this journey?
Peter Eriksson 09:26
Well, you have to look at it in the why I came there in the first place.
And the reason I started with coaching was to help others not have the same bad experience that I had as a speed skater. I mean, I think I wasted 10 years of my life on poor program training, whatever it was that we did. And, you know, I was there for the long run for my athletes all the time and always told them that I'm here for you until your career is over. And I didn't think they were going to last 15 and 18 It was so Well, I had to hang in there. But you know, it's a continuous learning process. So I don't regret that. And I remember in 2004, when Chantal particular, for example, won the first time in ever in history, five gold medals, and I thought, Great, now I can go home, retired from this, I don't have to worry about this anymore. And then three days later, I get a little card from her saying, Thanks, coach, let's do it again. So go okay, well, another four years. But it was a fun run, right. [PB6]
So to me, it never felt like I was doing some hardship in any way I was, I was never paid really until around 2005 When I worked for the US Paralympics. But I wasn't ever paid, I did this. And I had talented athletes and most of my athletes stayed 15 or 20 years. In, you see the result of the great athletes that I coach, and I give them the credit for the results. But you have to remember had an equal amount of athletes that was never successful. And the reason for that I think it's all about the relationship you're building with the athletes. Relationship is the base for success and writing a training program. To me, that's not particularly hard.
Paul Barnett 11:22
Describe to me what a successful relationship looks like, in terms of high performance.
Peter Eriksson 11:28
Well, there's many factors in that I think that you trust each other number one, and they understand why they're doing certain amount of training, I always tell my athletes to ask me, if Why are you doing a certain training session? And I have to explain what good is doing for them and why they're doing it. And if I can't do that, I told them don't do the training session, because then it's just not valuable. So you think it was that a and in you also can communicate with each other. And you know, it's easy and specific in athletics athletes, from one coach to another is always a new guru of some sort in the sport. And that doesn't solve the problem. For them. It's consistency, the focus and the relationship that makes a difference. To me,[PB7]
Paul Barnett 12:26
very, you've been a fierce advocate for equality when it comes to the Paralympics. In fact, you you integrated the Great Britain Olympics and Paralympic teams heading into the 2012 Olympics. But I wanted to flip that around a bit and ask you, what would your challenge between other leaders in sport and community in corporate who are listening? What would your advice be to them on changing their own biases and preconceived ideas about what people with physical impairments are possible of doing?
Peter Eriksson 12:58
I never looked at my athletes. physical impairment, I looked at them as athletes. So you know, if you're training a runner or two runners in around the same, and if you have a runner that have cerebral palsy, for example, he doesn't run the same as the next one who has cerebral palsy. So you have to look at what is the commitment to become an elite athlete to take away the stigma of disability. And just look at them as athletes. I mean, I'm not a caretaker and I just a coach that want to help athletes perform the best according to their expectation of what the best means. So I don't I never advocated for being doing integration. I just demanded that it shouldn't be to separate department, the Paralympic and Olympic. And I have never had resistance in particular in the UK, of Olympic coaches that is not willing to take on Paralympic athletes. And I only one time in all the time I've been around and he said, No, I don't want to do it. And the reason that person said no was because we were retiring the next year, so they didn't want to take on any new athletes. But at my team in, in, in London in 2012. For example, I had Sean Pickering, a well known throwing coach. From the Olympic side, I have Lloyd Cowell being on my team who goes coach in 400 meter Olympic gold medals. So we always had Olympic coaches on the team and I think we need to take away the stigma. Paralympic coach versus Olympic coach, your coach and that's it in the athletes is an athlete, disability or not, it doesn't matter.[PB8] [PB9]
Paul Barnett 14:54
In 2013 you switch and you become the head coach of the Canadian, Paralympic and Olympic programs, you go on to become the most medal winning head coach of Canadian athletics in modern history, which is a wonderful achievement, Peter, but what were some of the early decisions you made when you got to Canada that drove this unprecedented result?
Peter Eriksson 15:18
Well, so, between 1996 and 2013, basically, cannot have had between zero and one metals in every major event, and they want to make a change. And as you know, the making change is something that everybody agree on until they hit them, right. And so when I came along, Canada had to no, sorry, Canada has seven training centers. So I shut down five of them. And that way, I saved one and a half million dollar, which I gave directly to the athletes and their coach, in order to enhance the performance in the location that were, the other two training centers becomes more of the hub concept, you can come and go, you can get services there, you don't have to be there. You can come there for camps, whatever it is, we do coach. So that was the main change, because now suddenly, we directed a lot of money. And we didn't even increase the administration of bureaucracy, we actually cut down more on the bureaucracy. And all the money went to the athletes and the coach. I think that was the key to success. I had some good coaches around me, we had, we set up a total different support services with practitioners that was with the teams and across the country. And that also made a huge impact. So I think that was the key to the the whole success of the,[PB10]
Paul Barnett 16:45
in fact, Peter, one of your athletes, Jeff Adams said about you, quote, one of the things he's most talented at, is being able to modify his coaching style to individual athletes. Now, with so many athletes to coach, so many people in your program, how are you able to provide this type of individual support?
Peter Eriksson 17:07
I don't know if I have a really good answer for that. It's nice of you have to say that. Like it's more like the relationship you have in an ad this you understand where the trigger points are. Jeff is very outspoken and an argumentative and he's really good guy, which is very different from what I have is some of the athletes that was very quiet. They needed time to think about something that was making a decision. In in you have to just look at what kind of profile for how do you react to certain things. And in sometimes you believe that you have an agreement, and you really don't realize until much later that you don't. And I think he learned from being around them and constantly talking to them, and him being there for them. Right. And because I'm there for them, I'm not there for me, me doesn't really matter in this whole thing, right? I want them to achieve their goals. My goal is to make sure they are achieving their goals, right. So I think it's just take time and understand how each person react to different things.
Paul Barnett 18:26
How do you maintain that type of energy, though? You've got four daughters, I understand. Then you're taking this selfless approach to coaching people, how are you sustaining yourself? How are you keeping your own energy up so that you can be a giver? When it comes to coaching?
Peter Eriksson 18:41
I was just born with energy. And that's why I got into sport to keep out of trouble, I guess. And it just it just to me, it's not like even here now, right? It's not the job. This is what I do. This is what I love to do. And I see when I see an athlete succeed in reaching the goals they have set and I've been there to help them. That's the biggest kicker for me. I don't care about medals or world records or whatever it is. I'm just want them to reach their goal. So to me, it just comes naturally. This is fun. I enjoy it is going to end one of these days. And then hopefully my golf game gets better.
Paul Barnett 19:20
I want to talk about things ending if that's okay. Because it is an interesting part of your story. And there's a it's a longest question but I'd like to I think it gives context to the to the background gives context to the question I'd like to ask. So you're coaching Great Britain, and you had great success and they put it down to quote your inclusive and less abrasive style than your predecessor, which I think is anyone can listening to this will tell you definitely not an abrasive character. But then later, after this great run with Canada, Rob guy who was the chief executive of athletics Canada, in announcing the decision to part ways with you said, quote, however, through the report, it was felt that a change in leadership style was needed in the high performance area. So you've got these two very different quotes coming through. But, Peter, based on the experience you've had, what advice would you have now for other leaders, when it comes to potentially adjusting their style, their leadership approach to the situation they find themselves in?
Peter Eriksson 20:20
Well, it's different kinds of stakeholders in different type of situation you have when you have to look at the fact that what is it that I tried to achieve? And what what? Not power? But what can I do to influence anything, right? It's more of a listening scenario in one sense. But if you're giving the authority to do things, then do it. Don't wait for time to come. So you can do it in the writer. Because sometimes there is no right time to make changes, right? It's like stop smoking. It's not I can stop smoking on a Friday because you know, I have a beer on Friday and Monday, I can stop smoking either, because I go to work, right? So the same thing, we kind of decision take it on, as soon as you can, really. And try to make the best out of the situation. But it's also depending what's around you, right? Is it good CEOs, the bad CEO? Do you have the board behind you? Like in the UK, I have a Fantasticks experience with both the chairman of the board and the CEO, they were very supportive. They were asking hard questions, but they always let me do my job. And let me be responsible in good and bad. But how many times do you really meet need to see that in? In sport, right, because it's a lot of power play in sport, I think we waste too much time on politics and sport in general.
Paul Barnett 21:56
One of the stories I read Peter, in preparation for today, which I think speaks, speaks a lot to your approach, as a coach was the instances in Canada, when some athletes were very vocal in their criticism of your style. But what was fascinating was, you kept your feedback private, and you didn't engage with people through the media. And I wanted to ask you, was this an important moment for you when it came to building the team culture?
Peter Eriksson 22:29
Well, as you know, now, we're overwhelmed by social media. And if people in a group of athletes wasn't really group of athletes, it was a group of two or three. If you start to respond in media to all of this, you're a loser right off the bat. So there is not really anything to respond to. And you and you try to build a team culture within the national team in this sense, or if it is in business, or if it is, in a training center, you want it to be a culture where everybody's into the vision and the mission of what you try to achieve going out in media and try to have social media in particular, it is going to be ended up being a mudslinging contest that serves no purpose, right? And it's the first one on social media who, who makes a claim about anybody or anything. You can never you can never get it right. So after the when the my car contract was cancelled with Atlantic Canada, I never responded to me there because it had no bearing on anything. I'm not going to get my job back. I'm not about to defend myself for you know, slanderous stuff that that goes out on social media. I mean, I have a family, I'm a person. Like, that's what you forget many times when you have somebody being a performance director, coach, that there is a person behind this, I didn't take this job, to have a power of anything. I took this job because I know I could do the job and make a difference. But what they forget is always like when you work for an association with a person behind it. I have four daughters can when people start to write on my daughter's Facebook it's kind of a critical situation have tried to explain for them why I was doing this job in the first place. So trying to defend yourself in media it's it's meaningless, it's just they just looking after sensation right the same as the panorama program in the UK or I think they have it in Australia too. They don't listen to any kind of rational evidence of anything. They just wanted to make somebody look bad or make a point. So that's why I stayed way From it is like, I have a life. I'm a person in look at it in, in many ways when performance director and head coaches get fired, or they, they get canceled contracts, whatever it is. They never think about that or great as guy getting fired. He was such a bad guy and bad coach. I mean, it's a curse. Don't forget that. And it affects more people than just trying to trample somebody down in the mud. I mean, we have families, we have lives. And hopefully we have a live continuous.[PB11]
Paul Barnett 25:35
No, it's a great answer better. And I think you handled it with such dignity. And many of your athletes referenced it in articles and blogs about the way that you that you dealt with it, and the example you set for them. And I think that's such a powerful example for you to leave. But, Peter, you've helped, you've helped many of your athletes actually transitioned into coaching. And I'm wondering, what are the critical traits athletes need to develop to be a good coach?
Peter Eriksson 26:03
Well, I think it said some of it before, like continual learning, don't think that you know it, because you never know everything. And the more you know, the less you know. So continue, learn, learn from others. Listen to others, listen to their athletes, analyze everything you're doing, evaluate what you're doing, plan what you do, and be ready for the next step. Always be ready when a new plan. So that's what I think they need to look for to be successful as a coach going forward.
Paul Barnett 26:38
We talked about your four daughters a minute ago, and I believe all of them have names that begin with Jay. I don't know whether they've come to you and asked for advice if they like my daughters. But if they did, come and ask you for advice on being an effective leader, what would you tell them?
Peter Eriksson 27:00
Learn learn, always continue learning, learn from others. Listen to people. You don't have to do everything. Everybody say that it's wise and in have great advices. But you learn something every time it's like me listening to Frank tech speech. I heard it several times. And every time I learned something new. And it's great to have guys like Frank that really knows what he's talking about and be able to listen to him and his many others to there is a lot of, as I said before, these coaches that thinks they're superstar coaches, and they know everything, the only thing to do is to change your world words in science. They haven't changed anything. And most of them doesn't even produce performance. But I think you learn from everybody. So it's an ongoing learning process that I don't think stops as long as you coach it.
Paul Barnett 27:59
Maybe you've been very generous with your time. So maybe just one final question if I couldn't, under your leadership as a performance director or a head coach in either role, athletes have won a rather staggering more Well, under your leadership athletes have won over 240 medals, that major international competitions, which is it's a staggering amount. But beyond the medals and the world records, what is it you hope is the legacy that you've left so far as a coach?
Peter Eriksson 28:34
They actually get the question a lot, many times and actually never think about, because it's not why I came to poach in the first place. Like I came into it. Just to help there is other athletes. Not such bad experiences, I have it legacy to me, if they want to remember me, they can say well, he was one of the team members of the 2012 Paralympic Games, or he was the one of the team members for the 2016 Olympic team with athletics in Canada. And if they remember that, that that's all the I don't I don't, I don't I never think about legacy.[PB12]
Paul Barnett 29:18
Can I challenge you on that? Sure. I think in your story, and you've mentioned it a few times in your answer. It's this. There's something around selflessness that is just so central to who you are. And I think it's very central to your coaching approach. You are there for them. You are willing to give more energy perhaps than they are willing to give. And I think, I think this example, it's actually quite rare. If you think about it from a society point of view. Maybe it's not so rare in elite coaching. From a society and a community point of view better. I'm not sure there's many people that exhibit that kind of selflessness.
Peter Eriksson 30:00
Right. Maybe not. Sorry to get oh, no, no, it's fine. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I don't, I don't think about that either, right. So I just, I just try to whatever I do is, now when you have a lot of experience, and with what we're building up here, I'm the oldest guy to have on staff. And, you know, I'm not going to be here forever working. I work as long as I feel like I'm contributing, but I'm just here to help and advice based on the experience, experience that I have. And I don't have any. I don't have any vision of becoming anything else than I'm doing. And it was the same with coaching. I had my career as an athlete, I never thought about having successful athletes I, when I started coaching, I really started with speed skaters. Unigroup. And it was really, it was really fun. And then when I went to university, I met this guy in a wheelchair. And he was a track athlete. And he said, we started talking about training, and I love talking about training, any and he said, Can you help me? I don't know nothing about what you guys do. And he said, well come and watch on Saturday. We're racing them, and I did. And I go, that's really cool. Maybe I can help the guy. But then I have my experience with Herman and ghosty. So I have some information that way about gaming in general, from spinal cord injuries. So at the time, I worked as a fireman in for 11 years when I was an athlete, and then I started university, but I still worked. You know, one night, a week, and one weekend, a month or something like that. And one night, I got the study on, well, we don't know anything about physiology and training really, for spinal cord injuries. And I wonder how that work. And I started to, you know, be studying physiology. Right, all of these things down, I needed to know. I went to my professor at the University The next day, and I said, A, his name was P Ostrom. And he was the guru on exercise physiology. And it was the one that wrote the first book about exercise physiology. And I said, Pol, can we do something with this? I have a lot of questions. And egos. Yeah, that's a great research project. You want to do, don't go Sure. Where can I start? And he goes, Are you going to find the money first? So when to insurance company in Sweden, we had a department for disability, you know, research or whatever it was, and I know the guy worked. And I said, Can I put the proposal on research and they go Sure. Got 50,000 Swedish crowns from our time. And I ended up doing it the research for eight years. But it was all based on what is the impact of training for physiology wise on spinal cord injuries. And that also happened with my with my coach, because I didn't do any research as to publish a paper. Now the
Paul Barnett 33:40
stupid story, not a stupid story at all, from Sweden, all the way to Riyadh. What a great story. So many surprises, so many wonderful athletes, so many people that you've helped along the way. So Peter Erickson, thank you for spending a bit of time tonight. It's been fascinating learning a little bit more about your story. And I wish you all the best with your latest project in Riyadh.
Peter Eriksson 34:06
Yeah, thank you very much. Thanks. It was a pleasure being here.