The Sunday Mail
AFTER an illustrious career, including two appearances at the Olympics, Micheen Thornycroft is ready to row in another direction.
The 30-year-old Thornycroft is set to guide three young rowers – Holly Bicknell, Tarryn Hinde and Erin Soper – at the 12th African Rowing Championship in Tunisia.
Tunis Lake will host the regattas from October 20-22 and Thornycroft is excited to work with the future of Zimbabwe rowing.
“This will be my first time going purely as a coach, I was at this event as a coach/athlete in 2013,” she said
“I am excited to be taking the three young Zimbabwe girls, they are talented and have great potential. They are the future of Zimbabwe rowing,” said the former Springvale and Peterhouse College pupil.
Thornycroft retired from full-time rowing after the Rio Olympics in 2016 having also competed at London 2012.
For someone who had Olympic experience coaching always appears the obvious route to take after retirement but Thornycroft has a different view.
“Some may think it’s an obvious choice, but I would like to give coaches a lot more credit as the transition is not that simple,” she said.
“Being a good rowing coach takes a lot of time, passion and dedication.
“As an athlete you have a lot of knowledge on rowing, and everything is about making your boat go faster, it’s all up to you.
“But as a coach you have to be more dynamic. You have to figure out how to make others people’s boats go faster, as well as what appeals to and inspires different personalities to be better,” she said.
Rowing Association of Zimbabwe chairman Andrew Lorimar said they would love to see Thornycroft grow into a top coach.
“We have selected her as coach as we want to help develop her coaching skills,” he said.
“As a two-time Olympian and top performing athlete we would like to see her develop into a high performance rowing coach for Zimbabwean rowers and for rowers from other African countries.”
