The International Canoe Federation has announced details of a third online canoe-kayak sprint coaching course, to be held in conjunction with the University of Physical Education in Budapest later this year.

The third course will focus on expert coaching, and will run over three months. It will feature flexibility to enable participants to take part in the course from their home environment.

It will be particularly relevant to coaches working with competitive athletes at a national and international level. Exercise physiology, training theory, biomechanics and sports management and psychology are some of the modules that will be featured.

Information on the next online programme, to run from October to December, can be found here. The application form can be found here.

The previous two online canoe coaching courses run by the International Canoe Federation have been a tremendous success, with more than 50 coaches from all over the world successfully completing the development programme.

The ICF ran two level three sprint courses in conjunction with the University of Budapest. The first online course ran during the latter half of 2020, and saw 36 coaches from 15 different countries and five continents successfully graduate with an average grade of 99 per cent.

The second course was again held online during the first half of this year, and resulted in 18 coaches from 13 different countries and four continents successfully completing the program and receiving their coaching certificate.

These modules included classroom instruction, sport-specific presentations. Through the lectures coaches could apply coaching principles, skills, drills, training methods, strategy and tactics, detection and correction of errors.

The practical and technical parts of the programme also contained home assignments and independent study. Participants required making guided notes about their observations at trainings, making essays for the related theoretical subjects, study from the videos and electronic materials and completion of the online tests.

The average grade for this year’s course was 97 per cent.

“The results of these two courses have exceeded our expectations,” ICF sport development manager, Sebastian Cuattrin, said.

“We were greatly impressed by the number of potential coaches from such a wide variety of countries who wanted to take part, and then by the dedication and determination they showed to complete the courses.

“The last 12 months have been very challenging because of the global pandemic, so to be able to successfully improve the skills and knowledge of so many coaches is a great result for our sport.”

More information on the next online coaching programme can be found here, and the application form can be downloaded here.