Our Great Coach on this episode is Jon Rudd.

Jon started coaching swimmers in 1989 and is presently the National Performance Director for Swim Ireland.

Along the way he has coached on international teams for seven different nations - Great Britain, England, Ireland, Netherlands, Lithuania, Turkey & Kenya at World and Continental Championships events.

He is also the first and only swimming coach worldwide to achieve the International Coaching ‘Grand Slam’; which coaching at least one athlete to all 14 major international gold medals at both senior and junior levels.

He has also helped over 30 different athletes break 100 British and English Senior, Junior & Youth records.

Jon is one of those rare breed of coaches who is able to bring both the science and art of high performance into his philosophy in equal measure. He is passionate about success, and yet pragmatic enough to know that, in his words,

coach with integrity knows that they have a duty to protect and honor an athlete's future in the sport.

Some of the key highlights from our discussion included:

• His philosophy that the journey is always more honorable than the outcome of the journey.
• How athletes have to allow all pieces of their jigsaw to be put on the table before you can help them.
• And The F1 car analogy he uses to describe the difference with high performance athletes, and how they are human beings with an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, and not just simply human doings.

This was a wonderful conversation, that had me smiling all the way through and I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

If you would like to send us any feedback or if you know a great coach, who has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you, please contact us at paul@thegreatcoachespodcast.com or contact us through our website thegreatcoachespodcast.com

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