In the mid-1980s, when he was a 12-year-old boarder at the Mártires de Barbados, the sports initiation school in Havana, Iván Pedroso was awakened every morning by the hoarse, sing-song voice of the Poet Milán Matos, El Viejo, “Come on, come on, Iván, come on!” It was time to start training. For many years, after practice, Matos, without ever taking off the Panama hat that covered his head, would sit with Pedroso and discuss with him, teaching him the training he had done, the reasons for the exercises, the theory. Thus, with Matos’ training for almost 20 years, Pedroso became the best long jumper for a decade – 8.71m best mark, the ninth in history, an Olympic gold in Sydney 2000, nine world championships – one of the best in history. “And that’s how I learned to train. “There couldn’t have been a better teacher,” says Pedroso one afternoon in May in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 40 years later, settled in Guadalajara with a training group that includes Yulimar Rojas, the best triple jumper in history, injured, and Juan Miguel Echevarría, who is looking to make a comeback, as well as Ana Peleteiro, Fátima Diame, Jordan Díaz, Tessy Ebosele… It could easily be said that more than half of the medal hopes in Paris rest on his head.
AskIs it a big burden to bear the hopes of Spanish athletics in Paris?
AnswerNo, it doesn’t. For me, that means that the work I’m doing is good. I like it. I like it. It’s a pressure, but a positive pressure. Something that I’ve been building little by little.
PHow has Yulimar’s injury affected the group’s dynamic?
R. It affected everyone a lot when it happened, in Barcelona, when we were all there. But she automatically, after her operation, sent a message to the group wishing them the best. She told them that they had to carry on, not to worry, that she would return. And I think that gave the group a lot of strength. It’s a tough blow, but sport is like that. I went through that too.
P. Achilles too?
R. No, it was another injury. I had surgery too. Injuries, more or less bad, always affect you, but every person is different. It’s not easy. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, because I experienced it myself.
P. Is there always the doubt of going back to being the same as before?
R. It depends. It depends on each athlete. There are athletes who are separated from the sport by a small injury. There are others, like Teddy Tamgho, the first athlete I coached, in 2010: he had serious injuries and always knew how to come back stronger until he jumped 18.04m and became world triple jump champion in 2013.
P. Ana Peleteiro, bronze medallist in Tokyo, said that before Yulimar’s injury she was only training to be second, but now she is training to be an Olympic champion.
R. Yeah. Well. He’s always trained to do it well.
P. Is Yulimar the only invincible one?
R. It’s not that, it’s that I had her there and I saw her every day, I saw what she did and what she didn’t. Ana knows everything that Yulimar did and where she fell. But I have always told her that. Yulimar started like that too. Caterine Ibargüen beat her, Rypakova beat her… And perseverance, perseverance, perseverance has brought her to where she is. And the best thing about Yulimar is that she trusts me a lot. When you trust a person, things become easier for you. Ana trusts a lot too.
P. She says that even more so since she became a mother…
R. I always tell her, Ana, you have to trust me because I already know you. Since she came with me, it’s been like an experiment, like Yuli. I’ve gone little by little, I already know her, I already know what’s good for her, I know what makes her sick. And everything is easier now with her.
P. Do you feel like Jordan is the jeweler who has to cut the most valuable diamond and is afraid of breaking it?
R. Exactly. Of course. But not with fear of breaking it, but rather by fine-tuning everything so that it is more valuable, so that it costs more. I am fine-tuning it so that when it comes out, it comes out perfect. To amaze the public a little. He makes everything look easy. He is the natural jumper.
P. How do you manage to make so many things coexist in your head without going crazy: Echevarría’s dream, Peleteiro’s needs, caring for Jordan, not forgetting Cáceres…?
R. I think that my way of being is what helps me to manage them all in the same way. They all get along with me superbly. I trust them so that they trust me too. That is something important for a coach. You can’t be a boxed coach, one of those who come to training, you have to do this, I leave, there is no communication. I like communication because that’s how I learned to be an athlete with my coach, may he rest in peace. And he taught me how to do things with the athletes.
P. You will have to be careful. Each one will need a different word…
R. Exactly. For me, it’s always more difficult with girls than with boys, but we all get along very well. We’re a family, and I know each one. Each one has their own characteristics. I put up with one, I put up with the other, I push the other, like that. They’ve given me the power to be able to talk to them so that they respect me, and so I don’t have any problems.
P. The resilience of athletes is highly valued, but the resilience of the coaches who continue to be by their side and who could ignore them and dedicate themselves to other things is not discussed…
R. Well, I imagine there are coaches who are like that, but I never leave any of them. Even when an athlete arrives and has to start new things, the veterans, who have more experience in training and with a gesture from me they already know what they have to do, everyone tells him, ‘you started this morning, so hold on, because now he’s going to be on top of you and until you do it right, he won’t stop’. They’ve all been there and they have it as a joke when a new one arrives. Now they’re telling Juan Miguel too: ‘yes, hold on, because now he’s going to be at your side, walking next to you, if he raises his knee, his arm…’
P. No jealousy?
R. In the group, if I select one, they know that I will be with him. If a new one arrives, they know that I will be with him, that he will have a little more attention. It is not because I am with Yuli that I am going to forget about the others. Now when Yuli returns, everyone knows that I will be with her to start again. It will be a restart. I have no problem with anyone. I am like climbing a slope, and there are some who get tired, and I, keep climbing, I help these guys. That is my way of treating the athletes.
P. Does your great past as an athlete help you?
R. Just by being an athlete, I also know what they need from a coach and how they would like to be treated. I knew how I wanted to be treated and now that’s what I do with my athletes.
P. Do you have to have been an athlete to be a good coach or are a degree and a hobby enough?
R. There are many coaches who have not been athletes who are very good coaches, but having been an athlete makes things a little easier. Books are great, but creativity in planning and training is very important to me.
P. Have you learned anything from books?
R. I studied at the coaching school, first of all. And yes, the planning part and all that stuff. But the training part as such, Milan, my coach, taught me. It was me and him. And he always sat me down to show me how to plan, what we had to do… He taught me how to do everything: training structures, training things. I also read books. And I read, above all, Tudor Bompa’s book.
P. The strength training wizard, a Russian exile in the United States?
R. Exactly. I like it a lot for that reason, because I am very interested in strength, the various types of strength. My coach taught me them, but with that book I learned exactly how to differentiate one from the other. I did them all, but for me they were strength, and by studying that book, I learned the periodization of training, everything. Yes, yes. And I like it a lot, I read it all the time, I reread it. I have read others, but that has been the one that has guided me the most.
P. And the rest is your eye, your experience?
R. Of course, but not only that. I read books to know the essence of things, to know why we do what we do, but practice is the key. You have to be creative. There are many things in the book that are good, but when you want to apply them to athletes, you lack another part. And that is creativity. That same knowledge of forces, applying it to practice, to training, but creating different things, applying it to jumping, and it has worked. I have perfected many things from my coach.
P. Aren’t you tempted to write a book about your experience?
R. No, I don’t know. I have all the notes in my head, but nothing is ever definitive. It’s like medicine, every year there is progress. Before, a tendon operation meant a year off, without doing anything, and that’s why when they came back it was so hard for them. Now, you have the operation and within a week you’re already doing exercises, doing things, and there they are, moving, María Vicente, Yuli… And the training is the same. Every year you have to change little things. Not everything. Because if the training works, if the marks keep advancing, what you’re doing is fine, but some details are fine.
P. So you are not tempted to create a school, as Milan did with you? You don’t even have a second coach in your group…
R. Maybe in the future, but for now I want them all to jump. My goal is for them to jump, to jump and to fulfill their dream. That is my goal. I would like an assistant, but I feel like I can take care of them all without any problems. And, I don’t know, the people haven’t appeared yet. Maybe that’s it. Or I don’t trust them, I don’t know. A person who has the same address as me, I think it’s good. I’ve thought about it sometimes, when I have to run from one place to another, but…Teddy (Tamgho, who was his pupil) is a very intelligent person who wanted to make his own group. Anyway, we are connected. We talk and all that, but everyone has their own dreams.
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