Mel Marshall Law At Loughborough: ‘Put People 1st, Performance Takes Care Of Itself’

SwimVortex talks to coach Mel Marshall in her first interview since being made lead coach at the Loughborough National Centre in Britain

When Melanie Marshall takes to the deck at Loughborough University as head coach come January 1, swimmers will see a former international, a coach – the coach to Adam Peaty – and all the things we know of that led to her landing the job as their mentor.

What she wants them to see is a coach for all skills and personalities, a coach who wants to know from the get go what the person standing in front of them is all about: what drives them to the water; what gets them up each morning; what makes them tick; and what strengths can help to make them the best they can be; what weaknesses need to be ironed out. Marshall will have a one-on-one relationship with each of her charges. She will insist on it.

Not so much towing as buoyed by her own experiences as a swimmer, her journey as a coach these past two Olympic cycles and the lessons learned at City of Derby with Peaty and mates, Marshall not only intends to work with the individual in the team but is thinking well beyond the box of her own pool.

Loughborough is to be a hub, a swap shop of excellence open to swimmers and coaches from around the country not only the talents in residence. To some extent, it has already been that. Peaty, for example, is no stranger to the place, the centre a temporary, long-course home from his Derby home during the years of preparation for Rio 2016.

Marshall intends to take things to the next level, for the individual(s) and the hub.

Asked by SwimVortex to outline some first key tasks on the job in Loughborough Marshall says:

“I’ve always believed that every individual who walks through door is unique. Yes, there are general things that apply but it is that individual formula and code that you need to crack. We cracked it with Adam: it is a case of understanding the individual and what works for them and finding the best development path that completely suits suits that individual.”

How had that worked out in a club program with the demands of a program stretching from the minnow, the swim-along and along the spectrum to Olympic gold prospect?

“At Derby, we created our own sectionalised elite group. I had six swimmers in that group for the past three years. It is just about changing your dynamic within that bored club situation. You kind of have to mould yourself as a coach. How I am for Adam is not how I am with or for others. There is the wider picture and the specific picture and within that the individual performer and performance.”

Britain’s Coach of the Year Melanie Marshall, with her top charge, Adam Peaty [images, BOA (Marshall), Patrick B. Kraemer, top, and Gian Mattia D’Alberto]

Just how the dynamic will work at Loughborough will remain in-house. British Swimming made its agenda clear on the day it announced Marshall’s appointment but what the coach is prepared to say nails the overall goal:

“We are going to harness the things that have made us great over the past 4 years and evolve that program.”

All eyes on Peaty, of course. He’s no longer a prospect and promise. He’s the real deal: an Olympic champion who converted to the next level with a series of stunning world records before and after a brace of world titles. His victory over 100m breaststroke in Rio marked the performance in the Olympic pool (and any other pool) of the year.

Peaty – not to mention his mum, Caroline – will no longer struggle with a 45-min one-way pool run. He lives an eight-minute drive from the Loughborough pool. There’s be other changes, too, Marshall acknowledges.

“Yes, there’ll be a shift in dynamic. He’s excited about the change. For the past eight years we’ve had an incredibly good run. Now it will be “full-time” and we will work out just how that change will look. It will involve  having more people to work off and fresh people to work off. Adam’s very much looking forward to that.”

Indeed, Peaty is already enjoying it. Marshall had a smile on her face when looking across the lanes of late to see Peaty and developing backstroke ace Luke Greenbank “bouncing off each other, having a good time … he’s got adults around him and working alongside him and he can have a banter with them”.  How significant is that? Says Marshall:

“I wouldn’t want anyone to take this the wrong way but the fact is, swimming involves a really boring preparation. It’s five hours a day in water and then gym; six and a half hours of preparation a day. A lot of that is ‘go up and there and come back’ and we have to be innovative in the ay we deliver what we do. You have to think how do we engage the individuals and liven up that process.”

Adam Peaty and coach Mel Marshall

A process that will not stop at Peaty and Loughborough. “We are going to be a hub for this country to get better,” says Marshall. ” We will deliver the best practice and only the best will do.”

Skills, work ethic, fast swimming but also happy rounded folk?

“Absolutely: it is my belief that we want to be better people through sport, not worse. My philosophy is that through what we do and the work at the hubs like Loughborough, as well as out there in the clubs beyond, we can help swimmers be better equipped for life, better able to cope, become better people and role models. I have some ideas about how we can bring that to life.”

The work is not only ‘there and back’ nor even confined to the water or gym. “If when standing in the arena on the big occasion all you are is a swimmer in a frightening place, it isn’t going to go the best. We’re also responsible for placing confidence in the human and that involves working with the human not just the swimmer.”

Tomorrow, as some arrive at world s/c titles in Canada at the end of Olympic year, Marshall, Peaty and others from Britain, will arrive in Dubai for a two-week pre-Christmas camp, the next long-course journey well underway.

The group will be hosted once more by Hamilton Aquatics, where coach Chris Tidy and his team have played a part in the progress of Peaty, Marshall and others from Britain. Says Marshall: …

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