Since 2020, Kenny Guex has been the head coach for sprints, hurdles, and relays at Swiss Athletics. In another lane, he is a lecturer in physiotherapy at the Haute \u00c9cole de Sant\u00e9 Vaud. We spoke with him about the 4x100m relay, as the women\u2019s quartet traditionally closes Athletissima, often with a blazing time.<\/p>\n
\u201cThanks to this event, the women\u2019s 4x100m relay enjoys a great and prominent showcase,\u201d says Kenny Guex. \u201cSince 2019, this team has been brushing shoulders with the world\u2019s best, appearing in nearly every major international final (Olympics, World and European Championships). We are now entering a new Olympic cycle. Competing in meets alongside other top-tier relay teams, like at Athletissima, is an important step in our development.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kenny Guex continues, emphasizing: \u201cYou don\u2019t become a good relay runner at the elite level\u2014it requires significant investment at the youth level, with regular and sustained participation in technical training. In a relay, there\u2019s no use having four fast athletes if the technique isn\u2019t there.\u201d<\/strong> When the baton is passed cleanly from one hand to another, up to 3 seconds can be gained compared to the sum of the athletes’ individual times.<\/p>\n One of Kenny Guex\u2019s main objectives is therefore to help develop a solid base among young athletes. \u201cFor the top of the pyramid to shine, its base must be strong,\u201d he adds. \u201cOne approach is to improve collaboration across all men\u2019s and women\u2019s teams at every level: elite, U23, and U20. In our system, each team has its own coach. But everyone works together under the same philosophy. During training sessions, U20 coaches assist the U23s and vice versa. This helps with the transfer of skills.\u201d<\/p>\n A relay team is like a family that lives with a baton. \u201cTo perform well,\u201d Kenny Guex continues, \u201can athlete must be driven by a sense of self-efficacy and responsibility, both in terms of precision and discipline. They must also be able to speak up and contribute to decision-making, which is led by the coach. When everyone is on the same wavelength, only good results can follow.\u201d<\/p>\n This philosophy is bearing fruit. Over the past two years, the U20 men won European gold, the U20 women took world silver, and the U23 women claimed European bronze\u2014with Kim Beytrison as coach. He is now the new head coach of the women\u2019s elite 4x100m team. \u201cJust like Patrick Fischer in hockey,\u201d says Kenny Guex, \u201cit was important for us to promote a coach from within our system, someone who has been successful with the youth teams.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Since 2020, Kenny Guex has been the head coach for sprints, hurdles, and relays at Swiss Athletics. In another lane, he is a lecturer in physiotherapy at the Haute \u00c9cole de Sant\u00e9 Vaud. We spoke with him about the 4x100m relay, as the women\u2019s quartet traditionally closes Athletissima, often with a blazing time. \u201cThanks to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42309,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-non-classifiee"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/athletissima.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/athletissima.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/athletissima.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/athletissima.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/athletissima.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/athletissima.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/athletissima.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/athletissima.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/athletissima.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/athletissima.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}