Devoted to coaching

Winner of the prestigious Canadian Coach of the Year award, Peter Eriksson has been the driving force behind Chantal Peticlerc and Jeff Adams’ Paralympics titles. Paul Gains portrays the man whose next challenge will be that of leading American Paralympics athletes to the very top.

“I am a coach of elite athletes,” Peter Eriksson declares with conviction. “I don’t care if it’s a racing chair, running shoes or a tennis racket because I coach elite athletes. And these athletes are elite athletes in the true sense.”

For the past fifteen years this Swedish born mentor has been the driving force behind the Canadian Paralympics programme, his athletes collecting the lion’s share of medals at all the major competitions while he has laboured, voluntarily, in the background.

Last summer one of his prodigies, Montreal’s Chantal Petitclerc, underscored her dominance by winning first the Athens Olympic wheelchair 800m demonstration event and then all five of her events in the Paralympic Games which followed. Not only did everything she touch turn to gold but she also set four World records in the process - a performance some have compared to the legendary American swimmer Mark Spitz.

“Peter has been very important in my career, of course,” Petitclerc confirms. “Winning a gold medal and winning five gold medals it is definitely a team effort and the coach is a big chunk of this team.”

On 29 March 2005 Petitclerc was named Canada’s 2004 Female Athlete of the Year. No surprise there. What was unexpected, however, was the fact that Eriksson garnered the Coach of the Year honour. Finally he had received recognition for years of commitment to his athletes - a vocation incidently for which he has not received a penny from the sport governing body.

“It is a fantastic honour. The competition I had with the gymnastic coach and the canoeing coach, I was just flattered to be in the final three and I thought I had no chance of getting it,” Eriksson says of the award. “The gymnastic coach was the first to get a Canadian gold in the Olympics and the canoeing coach got two or three golds and we have had the problem in the past being equal to the able-bodied sports system and judged equal to that.”

Mild mannered, polite and not one to seek the spotlight he did not attend the gala dinner in Toronto when the awards were handed out. Too busy, was his reasoning. Indeed, he was away at a two-week training camp in Warm Springs, Georgia which he had organised and to which he had invited wheelchair athletes and coaches from around the world. About a hundred turned up for the sessions flying in from Japan, Ireland, Britain and various other overseas destinations. Petitclerc was one of the star attractions though she flew up to Toronto to attend the awards night.

The morning after the awards another of Eriksson’s long time athletes, Jeff Adams (silver medalist in the 2003 IAAF wheelchair 1500m) placed a call to Petitclerc to see how she had fared. Eriksson was seated next to him during the conversation. Petitclerc told Adams she had won and that Eriksson had also. It took Adams some time to convince the coach he was indeed Canada’s Coach of the Year.

Eriksson has been supporting his family - he and his wife have four young daughters - in his role as Vice President of Business and Sales for a high tech software and internet service provider in Ottawa. Like many unpaid coaches money can be a limiting factor. Last summer he was humbled somewhat when Adams and Petitclerc insisted on paying his bills so that he could accompany them to a pre-Olympic training camp in Grosseto, Italy.

“I told them I could not go because of financial reasons,” Eriksson remembers. “Then it was Jeff who came up and said ‘we discussed this and we want to make sure you don’t get stranded’ so it was Jeff, Chantal and Kelly (Smith) that helped me out. I said to Jeff at the time ‘I can’t take your money from the (Sport Canada) “Excellence Fund” to send myself to Europe I don’t think that is right.’ He said ‘no, we insist. We want you there.’ Really they were firm about that.”

“It’s incredible. I know they are in a tight position themselves. They have to pay bills and go to competitions and stay in hotels which they had to pay themselves in order to be able to compete enough throughout the year. I have coached them for so many years and, I mean, it’s really a verification that they believe I can help them.”

Financial constraints could be a thing of the past now, however. On 1 May Eriksson received a work permit allowing him to accept a full time coaching position with the US Paralympics Committee in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The organisation had approached him earlier in the year.

As head coach of the US Paralympics track and field team Eriksson will oversee training programmes, devise selection criteria for national teams and build a developmental program - while continuing to coach Petitclerc, Adams, Smith and several other Canadians. For now he will remain in Ottawa but foresees a time when he will move his young family to Colorado Springs.

Petitclerc is happy for her coach but disappointed that he could not find employment in Canada.

“I am very sad that the Canadian Coach of the Year is leaving Canada,” Petitclerc says. “I thought this was definitely a reflection of how our coaches and staff in Canada are challenged. It is hard for them to make a career out of it. And if you are the coach of the year in all sports, and the best Paralympics coach in the world, and you cannot get a decent job in your own country, I think it’s a sign that something is not going well.”

“The US Paralympics team is not very structured so they called on Peter to help. And I realise this will be a very exciting challenge for him because he has to start something with some very talented athletes who have never had the high quality programmes. So he is going to build that programme. I can see that this is the challenge of a lifetime and I am very happy about that. I know he will enjoy this challenge. Definitely, I am happy that he is going to get the chance to do that.”

Eriksson emigrated to Canada in 1987 with a Master’s degree in Physical Education from Stockholm University. For a while he had worked with the renowned Swedish exercise physiologist Per Olaf Astrand conducting research on spinal cord injuries. He had also represented Sweden in speed skating finishing 10th in the 1977 World Championships. This combination presented a unique background to coach disabled athletes and when, at the 1990 Commonwealth Games in Auckland, he met Chantal Petitclerc the die was cast.

The athletes commend Eriksson on his ability to understand what each athlete needs. He knows their mindset leading up to a race for instance and when he should offer words of encouragement and when to step out of the way. Jeff Adams recalls an incident which occurred at the 2003 IAAF World Championships where he won the silver medal in the wheelchair 1500m which illustrates this characteristic.

“You know athletes have their rituals they go through and I always drink an espesso before the race,” Adams remembers. “So I had this espresso in a bottle in the warm-up area and it started raining so I had to switch gears, get different wheels on and use different gloves and so I sort of got out of my rhythm and I forgot to drink my espresso. We had been marshalled and just about ready to go the call room which was diagonal to where we were on the other side of the track.”

“I looked at Peter and told him I forgot to drink my coffee. He said ‘where is it?’ and without a word he ran across the track diagonally about 180m and then he ran back with nothing in his hands. And he said, ‘I couldn’t find it, what does it look like.’ I said ‘forget it, it’s in a bottle.’ Without another word he ran across the track again and brought back this coffee. He and I both knew that it was absolutely insignificant to my performance but because he knew that it was a ritual I went through he went that extra mile and did it. To me it just spoke volumes about what he would do for an athlete in a situation.”

The future looks bright for Peter Eriksson and for the American athletes who will benefit from his vast experience. There is another significant objective on his mind and that is to integrate Paralympics athletes with coaches of able bodied athletes. Already he has met with Tonie Campbell, the former US hurdler, who is coaching at the USOC training centre in Chula Vista, California and Lisa Larsen-Wiedenbach, the 1985 Boston Marathon champion seeking ways to bring them on board.

And he has hopes that one day the wheelchair events held at the Olympics and at IAAF events are full medal events. Until then he will continue doing what he enjoys best - coaching and developing elite athletes.

Published in IAAF Magazine Issue 2 - 2005