I completely agreed with minimizing the amount of information that a competing decathlete has to process. Some of the best combined guys I’ve ever been around are high energy and very competitive in the heat of it all. I’ve seen coaches try and go over to an excited athlete and over-cue them into a more thoughtful/passive state that inevitably deminished performance. I work on a staff where it’s our throws coach and myself working with our combined eventers and we have a rule: in competition, it’s about maximizing what we do well; not fixing what we do poorly. I think there is a lot to be said for letting the athlete just compete. If the athlete is well trained and coached, he should have the knowledge enough to self-direct any minor errors and minimize the coach’s role keeping the communication line clear and concise and perhaps most importantly, POSITIVE. I consider the coach’s role more a servant to the in-between; providing a comfortable environment with water, shelter, nutrition, and encouragement.
As far as multi guys making the best multi coaches, i agree, there does seem to be a greater number of combined guys who end up great combined coaches than any other event group aside from maybe distance. I have to say though, i have been involved in a situation where a very successful decathlete became a combined coach and he was a disaster because he was not an effective teacher. I think its always important to recognize that coaching at its root is still teaching. Regardless of the event, great coaching starts with great teaching skill and instincts. Perhaps because combined event success is so dependent upon being a strong learner, it later translates into being a strong teacher.