Our Coaches

Senior distance running - Bazyl Piotrowski

Bazyl coaches our senior distance runners. 

​

Youth/senior sprints - Murray Cumberpatch

I was brought up in Mt Roskill and started running at Roskill South as a youngster until about 13 years when Arthur Lydiard first awarded me prizes for long jump, shot put, 75 meters & 200 meters but suggested I would be a better sprinter & pointed me in the direction of my career coach Russ Hoggard who was based at Lynndale Athletics. My first season was at Owairaka briefly with Steve Erkkila when we competed before moving over to Lynndale and our coach & group.

 

I was at Lynfield College and first represented Auckland in athletics in 1974. While at Lynfield one of my teachers Rory Barrett was an Olympic Weightlifter and helped coach me in Weightlifting, although Rugby was my first passion. I represented Auckland, and New Zealand in Weightlifting & Athletics. I sustained an injury to my back lifting too much when I was young so asked the surgeon if I could follow athletics as I was doing OK.

 

I had a very successful career first setting season bests over 100 & 200 meters from the age of 15, before later moving out to 400 meters and in 1982 set new NZ resident records over 400 meter hurdles. In 1987 I left athletics to complete in the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary in NZ's first Bobsleigh team and that was where I found great success.

 

I finally retired in 1995 but have still always been actively coaching & a small amount of competing for myself in Masters.

 

I have a good eye for spotting young running talent & helped many young gifted sprinters with soccer, rugby, touch, and rowing and who have gone on to be very successful. I was happy to come back to Owairaka and start helping the young runners with style & speed and watch the good improvements they are making.​

​

Junior Lightning Bolts/general running – Nick Moore & Dion O’Neale

Nick and Dion are both Athletics New Zealand Community Coaches. They are trying to build a strong squad of junior runners focusing on distance running through the winter (the Lightning Bolts) and sprints and middle distance in the summer with the Lydiard Squad. The focus for both is on fun, skill development, trying things out, adventure and building friendships and confidence. National U18/U20 steeplejump champion Timo Macdonald supports Nick & Dion with this squad.

​

Jumps - Nanne de Haan

Nanne coaches jumps/ combined events for juniors on a Thursday.

 

In his own athletics career of some 20 years he figured out 2 things with regards to junior athletics:

• Having fun is the most important aspect. 

• And grassroots athletics is a team sport.

 

You can have fun in athletics when you have confidence in your skills. Confidence emerges when either you are a natural talent (few kids) or when you can rely on coaching on your individual technique (everyone else). Therefore Nanne tries to focus a lot on exercises to improve kids' technique and tailors these to the individual.

 

The team aspect is introduced by taking the kids on a joint sportive journey, taking part in events where the team result counts and setting shared developmental goals.

​

Throws - Nigel Stainton

I feel blessed to still be able to throw javelins competitively, in the Masters, at the age of 66. I have been throwing all my life, with some breaks for work and family, but I am once again back into training. I like to think – I am now the coach I wish I had had when I was young. For the key to throwing javelins is to learn the real elastic technique of throwing off the front foot, before the bad, testosterone driven habits, get too established. 

 

I have been in clinical practice as an osteopath for the last 28 years, so my understanding of the unified dynamics of living anatomy, neurology, and physiology in performance & health is excellent.

 

I lived in the UK for the first 45 years of my life, before moving to NZ, in 2005. I was ranked No 11 on the UK All-time-list, at my best, with a throw of 75.28m. I was ranked No 2 in the world in the Masters, in the 50-54 age group, 12 years ago. 

 

I love coaching anyone who wants to learn javelin, discus, or shot. As technique is very individual, I like to let it be emergent and guided, rather than imposed. There are critical principles that make a javelin fly that can be understood, but each athlete’s embodiment of these principles is unique. 

 

I am currently at the track on a Wednesday evening from 7pm, throwing for myself and very happy to share the run up, with anyone who wants to explore throwing.

​

Jumps - Josef Macdonald

Josef coaches our Lydiard Squad juniors in jumps on Wednesday club nights in the summer.

​

 

Halberg Squad coaches - Grace Parkinson, Grace Vashi, Annika Vashi, Mack Brent

We are lucky to have four young athletes work alongside Bart Utley (Kelly Sports) coaching our littlest athletes on Wednesday nights.

​

​