World Triathlon Development, together with the International Triathlon Union (ITU) Women’s Committee, has launched a re-envisaged World Triathlon Mentor Programme.
This will be delivered virtually, with the goal to increase and sustain the number of women and people with disability in leadership roles in coaching, technical officiating and governance in the sport of triathlon.
“This is one of the projects that I am more proud of and I can be happier of re-launching the Mentorship Programme, especially now that we are making it even more accessible for everyone,” said World Triathlon President and IOC member, Marisol Casado.
“Our goal has always been to identify the talent that is out there, and help these persons to participate more in the sport, as coaches, technical officials and administrators. I am sure that the next generations of leaders of our sport, from the grassroots to the top level, will come out from this programme, and we will do all that we can to support them, educate them and invest in their future, as it will be the future of our sport.”
Norman Brook, Lead Facilitator of the Mentorship Programme, said “In sport, as in most endeavours in life, it helps to have people around you that can support, mentor, and guide you on your journey. The World Triathlon mentor programme will provide a skilled cadre of mentors that will help support the next generation of top triathlon coaches, technical officials and administrators, encouraging more women, people with disabilities and individuals from developing nations to become leaders in the sport.
“The team at Brook Sports Consulting are in turn looking forward to providing training and on-going support to the World Triathlon mentors over the next two years.”
The World Triathlon Mentor Programme will be delivered in two blocks commencing August 2020 and January 2021. Each block will be made up of three courses starting four weeks apart – each six weeks in duration.
Each course will comprise of pre-course work, weekly e-learning, weekly exercises and weekly webinars. It is expected that this will involve between two and nine hours of commitment per week to complete the course. Two or three mentees will be assigned to each mentor at the end of each course.
A material change is that the virtual delivery of the course allows participants from all continental confederations in a single course. It is intended that the first course will be comprised of the five Continental Mentor Leads, and three participants from each of the five continents. The second and third courses (September 2020 and October 2020 respectively) will have between three to five participants from each continent.
World Triathlon re-launched the application process for mentors and mentees on Wednesday, 1 July 2020. National Federations will have until Friday, 17 July 2020 to apply. The re-launch will predominantly focus on mentees, as there is capacity for two or three times the number of mentees as mentors. Four of the five continental confederations already launched the application process in February 2020 for mentors and mentees.
Those applications already received will remain valid. World Triathlon will work with the nominated Continental Mentor Leads to communicate with all current applicants to advise them of the changes in the programme. The programme has inclusivity targets with regards to gender, developing countries, triathlon disciplines and disability.
An essential element of the programme is the Continental Selection Committee. The continental confederations have established the selection committee to pre-qualify all mentor and mentee applicants, and select those successful applicants for each of the mentor training courses and the subsequent 9-month mentee period.
