NEW DELHI: Two prominent coaches, Jamaica’s Jerry Lee Holness and Germany’s Ronald Wiegel, will be training Indian athletes in the present Olympic cycle. Their initial assignment will be the forthcoming World Championships in Tokyo, and subsequently the Asian Games in 2026.
Confirming the two appointments, Indian athletics‘ chief coach Radhakrishnan Nair said Holness has been engaged to coach the women’s 400m and 400m hurdlers, while Wiegel will coach both men’s and women’s race walking contingents.
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“Holness arrived in India on Friday and joined the National Centre of Excellence (NCoE) at the Lakshmibai National College of Physical Education in Thiruvananthapuram on Monday. He has commenced training the women’s 400m and 400m hurdles teams from Tuesday,” Nair told TOI.
“Wiegel, the coach from Germany who is now settled in Australia with his family, has accepted the Athletics Federation of India‘s (AFI) offer to coach our race walking teams. He was training the German national race walkers but tendered his resignation. He will officially join the Indian race walking set-up on March 1. He will be stationed at the Sports Authority of India’s (SAI) Netaji Subhash National Institute of Sports, Southern Centre in Bengaluru. Their contracts will initially run up to Asian Games 2026, with the possibility of extending them till the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics based on performance evaluations,” Nair said.
Holness has been a mentor to Olympic and world champions Elaine Thompson-Herah and Nesta Carter. Elaine is considered one of the best women sprinters boasting of six Olympic and five World Championships medals. The Jamaican won the 100m and 200m Olympic gold at Rio 2016 and successfully defended both at Tokyo 2020. She also secured the women’s 4x100m relay gold in Tokyo and is a former world champion in the same event.
Carter was part of the gold medal-winning Jamaican men’s 4x100m relay team at the London Games 2012 and has been a four-time world champion in the event.
Holness, 65, is a World Athletics Level 5 certified coach who has worked with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Cayman Islands national teams too. He will be coaching the likes of Indian quartermilers Hima Das, Subha Venkatesan, Rupal Chaudhary, Kiran Pahal and Vithya Ramraj.
Weigel is a three-time Olympic medallist – silver each in 20m walk and 50m walk at the 1988 Seoul Olympics and bronze in 50m walk at the 1992 Barcelona Games. He won gold in 50m walk at the 1983 Helsinki World Championships, and a silver in the same event at 1987 Rome Worlds.