October 16, 2006 – This year I had the honour of being selected to coach the Pakistan National Team. In early May, I began my coaching endeavour by attending a training camp at a government funded sports centre in Islamabad, Pakistan. The camp consisted of 16 male and 6 female racers.

Professional cycling in Pakistan is a work in progress as their best result had been a bronze medal from a competition in India. In addition, coaches and coaching education programs are far and few between. With this knowledge, I began with the basics –ensuring each racer had the correct frame size. Next was to build their endurance base.

I designed a four-month training program. It was hard work because the team was not accustomed to training so hard and there was a fair bit of teaching. As an example, the team was not familiar with interval training. Another challenge with the training schedule included respecting their religion: the team prayed five times daily — beginning at 4:30 AM and ending at 9 PM.

Before long, the results were evident. However with an improved team comes the pressure for improved results.

In August, we attended a South Asian Games in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Unfortunately, by the second day, there was political instability near our hotel (car bomb) so our training schedule was greatly reduced. Nevertheless, this did not faze the team. By the end of the competition, we had achieved the best cycling performance in the history of Pakistan — 5 medals.

– Gold Medal Team TT Men
– Silver Medal Individual Time Trial Women
– Bronze Medal Team Time Trial Women
– Bronze Medal Road Race Men
– Bronze Medal Road Race Women

In fact, the cycling team was one of the most successful Pakistan teams at the competition. Everybody was proud of a job well done.