A LAKE Macquarie sprinter who trains with an unconventional coach at Wangi Wangi has surprised the sport's fraternity by winning the women's 200 metres final at the NSW Open Athletics Championship in Homebush.
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Katie Smee, 23, of Speers Point, clocked a personal best of 24.0 seconds (into a headwind) to win the final against a more fancied field including Australian representatives.
Earlier in the meet, Smee placed fifth in the 100m final.
It was a remarkable turnaround for Smee who last year finished ninth in the 200m final after returning to the track from a four-year break.
The fact she entered this year's meet as an independent athlete - not representing an athletics club - raised eyebrows in the sport.
That's nothing: if only Smee's fellow athletes could see how she trained...
"Most of my competitors train on tartan," Smee shrugged.
And it's common for elite sprinters to do five or six track sessions a week.
But Smee trains on the grass at Wangi Wangi Oval, where she completes three sessions a week - plus two in the gym. What's more, she trains in the same group as children, rugby league players, and mums and dads up to age 50. And the coach doesn't use a stopwatch. Ever.
That's the set up at sessions run by her coach, Warren Medcalf, of Top Speed Sports Fitness.
Medcalf, of Arcadia Vale, has been a sprint coach for 30 years.
He's coached three athletes to World Junior Athletics Championships, and worked with the Newcastle Knights under coach Malcolm Reilly in 1996.
Over the years he has worked with tennis, soccer and rugby union players, too, and among his current stable of athletes are Oztag players.
He's not a fan of stopwatches.
"I do everything by eye," Medcalf said. "I just watch their form and leg speed."
Smee said the unconventional approach worked.
"It's crazy how he knows if you're running well," she said. "He'll say 'You're over-striding', and he just knows. It's really cool. It's a training style that I haven't seen before, and I really like it."
Medcalf said there was good reason for his elite athletes to train on the grass.
"It cuts down on injuries, but when my athletes get to run on the tartan at events, it's the same feeling you get after rolling a marble along grass, and then roll it along a lino floor," he said.
Smee was set to run at the Australian Athletics Championships, at Sydney Olympic Park Athletic Centre, from this Thursday, but the meet was postponed due to coronavirus concerns.
- Melinda Gainsford ran 23.23 seconds to set the NSW 200m record in 1997, the year Smee was born.
