Year in Review: National Able-Bodied Program

While international competition was put to a startling halt this year, TTA’s National Able-Bodied Program prevailed with some big wins – all of which will set up the Program for promise at the next two benchmark events and beyond.

Before Covid-19 impacted sport across the world, TTA Head Coach (Able-Bodied), John Murphy, led Australia to success at the Oceania Olympic Qualifying Tournament, as Australia secured maximum quota places (6) for the Tokyo Olympic Games.

Winners of the Australian Olympic Qualifiers, National Squad Members Michelle Bromley, Stephanie Sang, Chris Yan and David Powell were all selected to the Australian Olympic Team.

Although all competition ceased not long after, Murphy and his team of Performance Coaches – Simon Gerada (VIC), Franck Roguiez (QLD), Hongbo Liang (NSW) and Brett Clarke (SA) worked hard behind the scenes to ensure day-to-day training could still go ahead, with daily training environments set up in major cities across the country. 

“With Covid-19 limiting our international travel in 2020, we have been able to focus on what we are delivering here in Australia. I think having had this time to focus on our processes, we go into the new year in a very strong position,” Murphy said.

“It’s been great that the daily training environments in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide were providing training on an ongoing basis for our athletes, and this has been pivotal to the work the program has done this year.

“It’s been great to see this grow and develop throughout the year,” he said.

“Within the daily training environments, the overall team culture has also taken a massive step forward this year, which has been pleasing to see. I think our coaching team have worked very hard on delivering this. Simon, Franck, Hongbo and Brett deserve a huge credit for driving this continually throughout 2020.”

In Melbourne, Murphy and Gerada set up a professional training environment, with squad members training up to three times per day.

“At the beginning of the year, our squad was training semi-professionally, in an environment of evening training scheduled daily,” Gerada said.

“Since March, members of the squad have been training thrice daily, with the majority training twice daily, and the Melbourne DTE is now a professional environment.

“The National Squad, no matter where they are in the country are united in their approach to achieving international success, and on a daily basis the squad work, sweat and push each together as one. In a year of no competition, this for me has been the most pleasing achievement.”

On top of the behind the scenes achievements, Australia’s next crop of talent excelled, with Dillon Chambers and Minhyung Jee relocating overseas to play professionally – something Murphy would like to see more of from Australian athletes in the future. 

“We are delighted that Dillon Chambers and Minhyung Jee have made the step compete overseas this year, going to Germany and France respectively,” Murphy said.

“It’s obviously been a huge commitment from both athletes, particularly in this climate, but of course they and us at TTA will reap the rewards over the coming years.

“We hope more athletes will choose this path going forward. The more athletes we have competing at that level on a regular basis will only enhance our chances of winning medals at benchmark events going forward.”

While 2021 is set to be the program’s biggest year yet, with Tokyo looming and Birmingham around the corner, the program will be fully focussed on preparing athletes to perform their best.

“With the Tokyo Games postponed, we go into a new year knowing we have an Olympics to look forward to. Having qualified both men’s and women’s team, it’s sure to be an action-packed Games for us,” Murphy said.

“We know how tough it will be in Tokyo but we are preparing well and will be fully focussing on athlete preparation so we can perform our best come July, all while having one eye on Birmingham 2022 as it’s a major goal for us to come home with medals, which we are on track for.”

“We’re going to continue working on improving our daily training environments around the country, because this is where we can raise the standard of our national squad by working with the athletes on a daily basis in a training hall,” Murphy said.

Gerada also added that the benchmarks set by the Australian Institute of Sport this year only catapult the program to entire new level.

“We are thankful to have been pushed by the AIS. We have been challenged to set the benchmarks for international success.”

Although there is lots to do in 2021 for both athletes, coaches and staff, Gerada believes the year will be one of momentum for the sport.

“There will be more athletes, squad members and interest from High Performance athletes to join the environment, with several high level athletes making arrangements for 2021 to join the DTE,” he said.

“We’re also including a strength and conditioning program to the DTE in 2021, which will enhance the squad’s capabilities. 2020 has been nothing less than amazing, however the fruits of the united approach and the hard work will provide more results in 2021 and beyond on the court in competition."