May 31, 2007 (Toronto, ON) – Denise Kelly has spent more than 25 years in the sport of cycling. Kelly is a former professional road rider who has competed nationally and on a world class level earning numerous Provincial Championships and National podium finishes. Since her retirement from racing, Kelly has been coaching athletes in Ontario and has been involved with Team Ontario since 2001. She is currently a Level 4 certified Road coach and Level 1 MTB coach.

In late April she took on the position of Provincial Coaching Director with the Ontario Cycling Association and is looking towards building a winning team for the 2009 Canada Summer Games. We had the chance to sit down and talk to her about her new job, what she hopes to achieve over the next few years with the Provincial team, and what it takes to make a great coach.

So, you’re about a month into the job as the new Provincial Coaching Director for the Ontario Cycling Association (OCA). How is it going so far? What’s it been like working with the athletes and the other coaches?

Denise Kelly: Well, in terms of actually working with the athletes on the Provincial team, I haven’t really done that yet because we haven’t had a project yet, although I have worked with many of these athletes in the past.

Basically since 2001 I’ve been doing projects, running projects, coaching athletes in Ontario, and the reason that I now have this full-time position – or one of the reasons – is because of the Quest For Gold funding. It’s a salary matching arrangement between the OCA and the Quest for Gold. So it’s a three year position culminating with the Canada Summer Games of 2009. And that will be my fourth Canada Summer Games.

It’s different than what I was doing in the past. I’m becoming much more involved in the workings of the OCA — getting to know more along the way. And it’s very interesting because, even with the short time I’ve been on the job here, the questions I’ve been asked have been quite interesting. Not necessarily that people think I have the answer to everything, but I do get asked questions right across the spectrum, and that’s an interesting part of it.

It’s a big title — Provincial Coaching Director — like you’re expected to know everything [both laugh].

DK: Exactly! I figure it will evolve as I go and so far for the few weeks I’ve been officially here, it’s been great. The OCA has been in transition since December. We have a new Executive Director (Jim Crosscombe), a new Manager of High Performance (Brendan Arnold), new Development Coordinator (Matthew Knight), new High Performance Mountain Bike Coordinator (Kevin Simms), and now my new position, so it’s exciting. The OCA recently appointed Duncan Vipond as its new president as well.

So, it’s a three-year position with the Canada Games in 2009 as a primary objective. What other goals have you set for those three years?

DK: I’d like to see us field a really strong Provincial team at National Championships.

Are you overseeing exclusively the road racing or will you cover mountain biking as well?

DK: I manage the road projects and I’m overseeing the track and cyclo-cross in the fall. That’s because cyclo-cross happens in the fall and there’s no road and only some track at that time. And also I’ll make sure that I work closely with the Mountain Bike Coordinator to make sure that the athletes have some projects and we’ll work on selection criteria and things like that.

We have had a strong presence at the Nationals as a provincial team in the past and I’d just like to build on that. We’ve had good podium results from Junior men, Junior women, Espoir Women, and our mandate at the high performance level is to assist riders to get on the National team, or get on trade teams. We’re here to help them in their development to ahieve these goals. One of the ways to do that is to have strong performances at Nationals.

You had great success with Team 2005. Going into the 2009 Canada Games, are you using any new techniques or is it sort of an, “˜if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ kind of philosophy?

DK: This new position allows me to do is do more of what I was doing in the past which will serve to enhance the performance of the athletes. If we can have more camps, more projects leading up to the Games – that will help. Over the past several years I’ve been able to build relationships with some of the event organizers as well who have put on selection races in the past, so I’d like to start that process earlier, beginning in 2008 and begin the athlete identification process earlier as well.

That’s one of positives this new position allows me to work towards – more of a continuum instead of just on a per project basis. By the time we’re closer to the Games, more athletes will be involved with Ontario projects and they will have had more access to me as a coach as well.

So a key component is more long-range planning.

DK: Exactly. In 2005 we startedearlier than we did in 2001, and this year I’d like to continue to build on that success by allowing the athletes to have more access to projects, myself as a coach, and ensure that the athletes who have potential for the Games are on the right track with their coaches.

I really love to build a team atmosphere – not only among the athletes, but among the coaches as well in different disciplines, and build bridges across those disciplines as well. The Canada Games consists of mountain bike and road — and perhaps in the next Canada Games will have BMX as well. I think that we can all learn from each other and we can only grow from having a more open process and sharing ideas. That’s what I’d really like to see happen and the athletes that are chosen are the athletes that we all think are the correct ones to be there knowing they have a big force of support behind them to assist them to achieve their best performance.

What do you think it takes to be a good cycling coach?

DK: From an athlete’s point of view, what makes a good coach is that the coach is “right” for you. No matter whether that person is level four certified like myself or level two or level five — that doesn’t make a good coach for every athlete. An athlete needs the coach that’s “right” for them which translates into them being the best coach in the world for that athlete.

In general, there are many qualities that make good coaches, similar to what makes a good person. But I would say that, in general, first and foremost you have to have passion for the sport. The next thing about being a good coach is that you love to coach, in a similar vein as what makes a good athlete — you have love what you’re doing.

One of the things that I try to do when I coach athletes is to coach them so that they can coach themselves. I’m not on the bike with them. When they’re in a race, they need to be able to say “okay, this is what I need to do.” The bottom line is having a strong belief system – the athletes need to believe in themselves because they’re the ones on the bike in the race. One of the things that I’ve found over the years, which can be a bit frustrating as a coach, is that sometimes I believe in them more than they believe in themselves.

What is the biggest mistake developing athletes make when it comes to training?

DK: I would say that one of the biggest mistakes is trying to do too much – overtraining, obsessing about the details, or over-listening (e.g. taking five different pieces of advice from five different people).

Any comments on the next big thing in training for cycling?

DK: There are power meters, altitude tents and all the training methods in the world, but the bottom line is it’s what’s inside and the ability to put it down when it counts.

There’s a really strong mental aspect to the process isn’t there?

DK: Absolutely, it’s a key part of the whole package. And I do spend a fair amount of time doing some mental training with the athletes. It’s better to believe than not – dream big and if you fall short, you’re still going to get a lot further than if you never believed you’d get there in the first place.

Are there mental training exercises that you go through or does that motivation just come from a relationship with your coach?

DK: Definitely there are exercises we do. A lot of how I coach is how I trained. Everything that worked for me is what I try to pass on to the athletes.
I use a lot of positive visualization. There was a time in my career when I was extremely afraid of crashing because I had had three major crashes in three years and I was completely terrified. Shaking on the line, tears, it was terrible. So, I had to make a choice and I talk to athletes about that — you always have the choice. I had the choice to think like that and one of the only options at that point would have been to quit, because there was no way I could have continued racing. Or I had to change the way I was thinking. I started reading positive, motivational books and seeking out positive people to talk to and it took almost five or six months but the positive thinking became second nature. I had to work extremely hard at visualizing myself at the front of the pack and focusing on what I wanted to have happen. So that’s a very big part of what I talk about with the athletes.