Hong Kong athletics coach Anthony Giorgi harbours lofty ambitions for Rio Games
Hong Kong coach hopes to bring home a medal from Shenyang, but says athletes have the talent to target qualification for 2016 Olympics
Athletics coach Anthony Giorgi set off for the National Games in Shenyang yesterday with the 22-strong Hong Kong team, and hopes to return next week with at least one medal.
But Giorgi has his sights set on even loftier goals - qualifying one, or hopefully two, athletes for the 2016 Olympic Games.
"There's no doubt that the talent is here to qualify for Rio, and we have to give it a good crack for at least one athlete to qualify," said Giorgi, who started at the Hong Kong Sports Institute in April, having spent 10 years at the Queensland Academy of Sport, specialising in strength and conditioning.
Giorgi will be trying to instil some of the Aussie self-belief into his charges.
"Self-belief is a powerful thing, and that's one of the strengths we have in Australia," said Giorgi. "I worked at the QAS through three Olympic Games and worked with 50 Olympians and world championship athletes, including probably 20 medallists across different sports.
"This was from just one academy with around 200 scholarship athletes. The self-belief was truly amazing across all disciplines."
Hong Kong's best bet for an athlete to qualify for the Rio Olympics currently lies with our female marathon runners, he said.
"One of the reasons the marathon is a potential qualifying event that could produce the right result is the fact that it suits the Hong Kong athlete - particularly female athletes who are light and small.
"There are already quite a few female athletes that can run around the three-hour mark, and the qualifying time for the Olympic marathon is 2:43. Two of our girls have already run 2:48 so I definitely think there's an opportunity there."
Giorgi said two Japanese consultant coaches had been brought in to help the Hong Kong team boost performance. One will work with a soon-to-be-formed distance running squad, while the other will work with 400-metre runners.
"We're targeting the top eight male and female runners to join the squad from the 5k, 10k, half marathon and marathon distances," said the 39-year-old.
"The athletes who might eventually make it might not be the ones that are currently the best - it might be some of the juniors who possess great natural speed, but who need to accumulate work, fitness and conditioning so they can take the next step up.
"We want to try to foster more of a group training mentality and to increase the standard of the daily training environment. We need people to run and train together and to push each other out of the comfort zone."
Giorgi said he expected the men's 4x100m relay team to continue to do well in international competition, and to improve as a team.
"I think the relay coach identified quite early on that we can't compete on an individual basis, but by focusing as a team on the relay we could improve our overall performance.
"They have modelled themselves very much on countries such as Poland, Japan and even Australia. Individually they're not going to be able to compete with the likes of the Americans, Jamaicans or the British, but they also know that the Americans, Jamaicans and British don't spend all that much time doing specific relay training.
"They compete in a lot of relay races because it's in their culture, but they do not necessarily do a lot of relay training because they're focused on running as individuals."
With the men's relay squad qualifying for the London Olympics and the world championships, local athletics as a whole had received a huge boost, Giorgi said.
"The boys actually did very well in Moscow [at the worlds]. I think only one of the teams actually ran faster than they did in the Olympic year. Everyone else was significantly slower. This is what you tend to find the year after the Olympics.
"But they have to keep at it. This is why teams such as Japan, Poland and Australia have won relay medals on the world stage, because one of the big teams are going to drop the baton or stuff up a changeover - even the Americans and British teams do this."
Among his duties, Giorgi is instigating a programme to coach the coaches we already have.
"Modern day coaching is all about a team effort. Some of the projects I'm working on here concern providing coaching for the coaches - assisting them with setting up a high performance sports medicine and sports science structure, and also strengthening and conditioning.
"The facilities here are second to none - this is as good as anywhere I've ever been.
"I think people sometimes get caught up with the standard of facilities, but I've heard of hammer throwers training for the Olympics in the lights of their car because the lights have been turned off at the sports ground.
"The really tough athletes will catch two buses to training and then two buses home again, and will still work or study part time.
"One of the things I really want to get across here is that you can make it to the top being a full-time or a part-time athlete."
