[plyoman]

plyoman on October 6, 2008 at 9:34 am #14908

Hello! I just recently started training a young lady from Lower Saxony Germany. She is an exchange student and really loves basketball. To condition for basketball we talked her into Cross Country. She has never run a competitive race before . After only one month of distance running she competed in her first 5k in a time of 21:50 followed by her second 5k with a time of 21:14. I think by seasons end she will be around 20:00.The scary thing is I think she is more of a sprinter(looking forward to track season).
She told me she really likes running and I would like to point her in the right direction when she returns to Germany, but all my research has just confused me more. If there is anyone who can educate me on the German youth athletics system it would be greatly appreciated.

[Mike Young]

Mike Young on October 6, 2008 at 4:30 pm #73136

All that I know comes from a German PhD student who rented a room at my house when I was at LSU. Basically, much of their youth athletics systems that was infamous from the cold war days is gone. Now, there’s recruitment and talent ID but nowhere near what there was in the past and most activities take place at the local club level, which as I understand, practically anyone can join but the best people are quickly funneled to the best clubs.

If someone knows better than me on this please feel free to chime in and correct me.

ELITETRACK Founder

[johnstrang]

johnstrang on October 6, 2008 at 4:44 pm #73138

Try contacting University of Hawaii’s coach. They have a great heptathlete annett wichmann from Germany and maybe you can get her email… Im sure she would have a lot of information that your looking for.

[Floppel]

Floppel on October 6, 2008 at 5:08 pm #73139

I’m from Germany and was a sprinter during my high school years in Schleswig-Holstein, adjacent to Lower Saxony.
Mike is right, it’s the local clubs that do all the youth work. Coaches are required to get a licence to train athletes, the licence program is pretty decent as far as I know and takes about 3-4 weekends with an exam at the end, and it has a focus on the development of younger athletes, i.e. not doing too much to soon, suitable games etc. If someone is good enough and catches the attention of the state coach, there is a program with weekend clinics and a small stipend for equipment.
High school programs are almost non-existant. There’s one team competition with three meets per year (county -> state -> national), where the winner of one qualifies for the next. The Nationals are traditionally held in the Olympic stadium in Berlin, which is always a lot of fun. I made it four times in a row with my team, placing third twice, only bested by East German sports schools. It was basically a weeklong field trip with one day of competition. Good times.
College programs and regular competitions do not exist. There’s one national university championship, which is a meet like everyone else, except that you have to be a student to participate.
So it’s really the small clubs. But these are really abundant in Germany, every town and village has one.
Lower Saxony has some decent clubs, Hannover and Braunschweig most notably.