Participants of the Area Starter Course at RDC Moscow (© IAAF)
The Regional Development Centre Moscow organised an Area Starter Course on 4th and 5th February 2011. 12 participants (11 men and 1 woman) representing Member Federations of Belarus, Bulgaria, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, Latvia, Moldova, Russia, Uzbekistan, Ukraine attended this first activity of the year.
Alan Bell (GBR), Member of the IAAF Starters’ Panel, one of the leading global experts in the starting procedure, was lecturing the Course. Mr Bell was a Chief Starter at the Olympic Games in Beijing 2008 and at the IAAF World Championships in Athletics in Berlin2009. He has also been appointed Chief Starter at the IAAF World Championships in Athletics 2011 to be held in Daegu.
Theory sessions were held on the first day of the course in the Russia State University for Physical Culture, Sports and Tourism. During the presentations Mr Bell together with the participants considered numerous situations which may occur during the competitions, analysed video recording of sprint events in the recent major competitions. A special attention was paid the psychological issues accompanying the work of a Starter, building–up of a favorable atmosphere between Starters’ team and the athletes.
On the morning of the second day practical sessions were held in the Indoor Athletic Stadium named after Vladimir Kuts: participants modeled the job of the Starters’ teams using different distances, imitating competitions of a different level and then, in the afternoon, they fulfilled different duties within starters’ teams using the actual competition.
On 6th February Mr. Bell was the Chief Starter in the International Permit Meet “Russian Winter” and held a Master Class for the Russian team of Starters.
IAAF