Gold medal long jumper and 100m sprinter, Anna Grimaldi, and javelin gold and silver medal winner, Holly Robinson have been under the watchful eye of Mikey, who is also Anna’s coach, for 10 and eight years respectively.
Anna and Holly share their Paralympic experiences, and the important role their HPSNZ Athlete Performance Support teams play as they look to add to their medal tallies in Paris.
Despite having three Paralympics under her belt, Holly says Paris will provide significant challenges, not the least due to adding a new event to her programme.
“Paris will be the first time competing in shot put at a Paralympics which is exciting and also adds a different perspective and a new challenge,” says Holly who is the reigning gold medalist for her traditional event, javelin.
The addition of shot put to her programme since the 2023 World Championships has meant changes to her training regime.
“I’m so lucky to have the experience of Raylene (Bates) as my coach for both events and we have worked together to establish an excellent team of support staff to help assist in achieving our goals – S&C and biomech with Mikey, nutrition support from Sara Richardson, physio Peter Gallagher, massage therapist Yvette Latta, psychology from Rod Corbin and Performance Life with Nat Fraser are all integral to my preparation for Paris 2024 .”
Holly says communication is absolutely key now and will be in Paris. “I will have a very clear plan going into Paris including communication lines and expectations. It will be vital to be organised and to make sure my whole support team is doing their part well, regardless of whether they are actually on the ground there.”
Two time Paralympian with long jump gold medals from Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020, Anna is hoping to also be selected for a second event, the 100m, at Paris.
“Each Games has felt so different and Paris is no exception,” says Anna. “In Rio I was really young and just overjoyed to have the opportunity to become a Paralympian. I was 19 and only three years into athletics and didn’t really know what to expect.”
Anna says winning in Rio was a big shock. “It was like an earthquake to the system. I wasn’t prepared, I wasn’t confident in my experience and didn’t necessarily feel like I deserved the success.
“At Tokyo I was desperate to repeat my Rio performance to prove it wasn’t a fluke. Winning in Tokyo was one of the proudest moments in my career knowing I had put myself under so much pressure and was still able to perform at the pinnacle event. I showed I was a big stage performer.”
Anna says after Tokyo it was time to refresh her support team but Mikey is invaluable, so much so he has now stepped up to be her coach as well.
For Mikey, working with two such experienced athletes gives him a huge amount of satisfaction. “They are both very experienced, they know themselves well, they know and understand their bodies and their sports. They could pretty much write their programmes themselves. My role is really to make sure they stay on course.”
Despite the very different athletics disciplines of the two athletes, Mikey says there are some fundamental similarities in the work he does with them. “Firstly and most importantly we, the wider support team, want to make sure they are healthy, ready to compete and complete the tasks their coaches have set.”
There are, however, significant differences between their events and campaigns.
“Anna leaves for Europe much earlier and there is still a lot of technical work we need to do, especially work she can’t do when she’s on her own. We also need to be very clear on what she can do by herself.
“Holly is in New Zealand a lot longer so has more time which means a different type of preparation programme.
“I work very closely with Holly’s coach, Raylene, who sets the direction and gives me guidance to drive off.”
Mikey says the respective support teams talk with each other all the time. “We used to have formal meetings however it became evident that we would be more effective communicating individually as well as together using our WhatsApp group.”
While he wears multiple hats for each of his athletes, Mikey is clearly excited by what he is seeing in their build up and their goals for Paris 2024.
