Hartley gets new coach ahead of Olympics

ZULULAND’S Olympic hero Bridgitte Hartley has started her nine-month preparations for the Summer Olympic Games to be held in Rio de Janeiro in August 2016 with her new Brazilian coach Thiago Oliviera Borges.

The 2012 bronze medalist landed up with her new coach, after Borges met with Alan Witherden (South African official with the International Canoe Federation) at the Rio test event, who then contacted the general manager of the Natal Canoe Club, Brett Austen Smith, with the suggestion that Hartley take on Borges as coach.

Hartley plans to travel to Brazil to familiarise herself with the local conditions that Brazil will present and getting herself as prepared as she possibly can through fine tuning her training and the preparations.

Oliviera Borges is a former paddler in both sprint and marathon, and has a Masters degree with a focus on kayaking and sprint kayaking, and did his doctorate in Australia, where he also worked at the Australian Institute of Sport, developing athletes through to elite performance.

Hartley’s new coach has a lot of faith in her and with the right guidance and preparation he feels that she is well on her way to repeating the performance of 2012.

Being able to give her a concrete regime that she can follow in the build up to the Games is important for Oliviera Borges and he feels that a slight improvement from her going into the Olympics will give her the edge that she needs to get on the podium.

Although he will not be with her for the duration of the build up to the event he plans on being with her as much as he can and it will be important that they remain in constant contact throughout the vital build up.