Johnson meets Sports Minister

Quadruple Olympic gold medallist American Michael Johnson met with the Minister of Sport Anil Roberts on Wednesday. 

After  introducing the training programmes offered by Michael Johnson Performance (MJP), the conversation quickly shifted to the importance of coach development, which the MJP also provides.

The Sports Minister shared his coaching background to Johnson and highlighted the need to improve the standard and quality of coaching in T&T. 

Roberts explained that although local athletes have excelled on the world stage, the coaching expertise has not developed alongside the athletes in order to identify and hone the talent which abounds in most sporting disciplines. Admitting that the best athletes don’t make the best coaches, Johnson agreed that coaching is as much a science as it is an art, and coaches are fundamentally educators, meaning that those, who are best at it, approach the task this way.

Both men also discussed the possibility of MJP setting up one of their high performance centres in T&T, or finding an alternative arrangement for MJP experts to visit regularly and work with local coaches and athletes. Before the meeting ended, Johnson presented Roberts with a signed copy of his autobiography Gold Rush.