Former decathlete talks about the status of combined events in the UK, how to go about helping athletes learn a multitude of skills and the importance of mentors
A talented decathlete, Ashley Bryant demonstrated leadership qualities from an early age and captained the Great Britain and Northern Ireland team at the 2010 World Junior Championships in Canada, writes Katy Barden.
Having retired from competition in 2020, the 34-year-old – who heads up the jumps and combined events programme at Welsh Athletics – is now coach to a group of athletes including Welsh heptathlon record-holder Abi Pawlett and European U18 heptathlon silver medallist Thea Brown (who he is coaching remotely until she moves to Loughborough in September).
The 2014 Commonwealth Games silver medallist is one of only nine British athletes to have achieved a points score in excess of 8000. He is currently ranked fourth on the British all-time list for decathlon with a best of 8163.
How did you get into coaching?
I always knew I was going to coach. I didn’t want to coach while I was still an athlete because I knew how demanding it would be. Maybe it’s my personality or elite sport in general, but when I do something I either want to be all in or not at all.
When the Olympic Games in Tokyo was postponed due to the Covid pandemic I had to ask myself: “Do I do another year or not?”. At that point I preferred helping Millie* than training myself, so I decided to stop. We had the Olympics and a home Commonwealth Games [Birmingham 2022] which would have been cool to stick around for, but it just felt like the right time, so I made the move.
The first athlete I was asked to coach…I actually said “no” to British Athletics because it was an important time in their career, and while I hope I can go on to be a really good coach one day, I was under no illusions when I first started how hard it is and I was unsure if I was the right person for them at that time. I talked to my old coaches and they convinced me to change my mind, and I’m glad I did.
I’ve been very lucky so far to be in the right place at the right time and I’ve coached some talented athletes already, more on the women’s side rather than the decathlon at the minute, but I think that’s representative of where the event is generally right now.
*Ashley is married to Melissa Courtney-Bryant, multiple Welsh record holder and European indoor 3000m silver medallist.
How would you describe the current status of combined events in the UK?
It’s a tricky one. We consistently have heptathletes qualifying for – and winning medals at – championships from junior level through to seniors. We don’t have anyone qualified for this year’s World Champs on the guys’ side, and less frequently do we have young decathletes qualifying for age group championships. They’ve been very few and far between since Daley [Thompson] and Dean [Macey] so innately it’s not necessarily going very well for decathlon, but there is a lot of good work going on at the minute; there are good people doing good things, but are they drastic enough changes to expect a big group of decathletes to start coming through? I don’t think so.
Doing better with what we’ve got isn’t going to work unless we get more of the right talent into decathlon to begin with. That said, the depth this year is the best it’s been in a while. It’s great to see multiple guys scoring 8000 points – and I do think some can push on and score really big which is super-exciting – but is it because we’ve done something excellent as a sport, or is it luck? Unfortunately, I think it’s luck and it’s really sad that that’s the case.
What are some of the specific challenges you face?
The heptathlon and decathlon are very different events. We tend to get the right athletes into heptathlon but that’s not always the case with the decathlon. The decathlon is dependent on speed and, in general, British decathletes are too slow and too small in comparison to the world’s best. It’s not until you see the elite decathletes up close that you realise how big most of them are.
I see a lot of young talent on the Power of 10 – athletes who are fast and can jump well at a young age – but they never go further and try throws or combined events, and they specialise too early which doesn’t seem to happen on the female side.
On the guys’ side it’s going to take structural change; we need more coaches, more coach education, more talent and a development system that supports and guides young talent and coaches through the journey of learning the decathlon.
Linked to that, we don’t necessarily train the underlying principles of the events enough in this country, so we spend too much time slogging, specifically on the guys’ side, rather than training the fundamentals of what the athletes need and letting the technical elements develop over time.
I look back at myself and I wasn’t an exceptional athlete; I had some really good events, but knowing what I do now and what my tools were, I was never going to be good enough to do what Damien [2020 Olympic decathlon champion Damien Warner] did. Even if I had had elite guidance from a young age, I could never have got to that level. But, with what I know now, I would go back and prioritise my training very differently at a younger age. I could have avoided injuries and maximised my potential far better.
Coaching combined events requires expertise in a range of disciplines. Is your preference to coordinate a specialist coaching team or to deliver the coaching yourself?
I deliver all of the coaching myself but, that said, I’ll always try to do what’s best for my athletes and my personal development. For example, I have my former coach Aston [Moore] on my doorstep so I use his expertise and experience as much as possible. One winter Aston was alongside me at most of my long jump sessions as part of my mentorship with him, or I’d sit down and go through videos with him then go back and deliver the next session myself. I want to learn as much as possible from coaches with his experience.
A lot of the best athletes in the world have one lead coach and they deliver most of the training, but different people do come in and get involved. For the last two years going into Budapest [2023 World Athletics Championships] and Paris [2024 Olympic Games] Aston brought me on board to coach Katarina Johnson-Thompson. It was great to be involved in that process and to play a part in her Olympic medal at this early point in my career.
[Former head coach of British Athletics] Charles van Commenee was also involved. He guided and mentored me through coaching her shot, and even though I delivered 90 per cent of the training [for her shot put, javelin and hurdles ahead of Paris], having his help was obviously great and it furthered my own education.
Another reason I deliver the coaching myself is that co-ordinating parts is very hard, especially when young athletes aren’t in an elite sport environment. For example, having multiple coaches as a young kid coming through in combined events is very tricky because it’s a hobby and not a full-time job. People are busy, timings don’t always work, and organising a group of people is very difficult.
Although it seems complicated having to learn to coach seven or 10 events, there are so many fundamentals that carry over between events that when you do things well across the board, it will translate everywhere. I think that’s what I really enjoy about the coaching side, it’s the craft of the event and how you pull it all together. My athletes will hear me bang on about good decision making a lot. For example, how many reps do you do? You can write something down on their programme, but when you’re there in the moment and you watch how the session plays out, how you adapt and change things is everything. I’d like to think that’s one of my biggest strengths.
Who has been your greatest coaching influence?
I have conversations with so many people and I have a big coaching network with a few people in every event that I talk to.
Aston, Scott Simpson, Benke Blomquist and Rob Denmark – who all coached me at the end of my career – were around a lot when I first started coaching. They all coach in different ways, so I basically tried to take the best bits from each of them. I was very fortunate to have those guys around and their influence and input as I started coaching has been key for me.
In addition to long jump, one of my best events as a competitor was javelin, but just because I was good at javelin doesn’t mean I’m a good javelin coach. It’s been a real education piece for me; tips that I needed when I was throwing 70m are not always appropriate for coaching a 30m female heptathlete. I feel like I’ve been studying at university again for the last few years and I’ve really enjoyed that side of it.
What would you say are the characteristics of a good coach?
The best coaches have excellent knowledge and a programme that delivers what they are trying to achieve.
On top of that, the best coaches just know how to get the best out of people and make the right decisions; they know when to push and when to hold their athletes back, something which is especially important in combined events.
I remember when I met John Hillier back in 2013, he really opened my eyes to shot and discus technically and how much of a difference specialist coaching can make. When I moved to Loughborough and worked with some of the coaches I’ve already mentioned that same thing happened again in other events.
That’s why I like to be super-focused on the details. I like to teach my athletes the event and what we are trying to achieve, then try to coach it as simply as possible. I think it’s important that you understand what you’re trying to achieve long term, then try to tick off small parts along the way.
