Paul Lewis: Strong views led to split

Didier Poppe and Valerie Adams. Photo / Steven McNicholl

There is a temptation to look at the parting of ways of world and Olympic shot put champion Valerie Adams and new coach Didier Poppe and think: instability.

After all, it's only months since that wrenching split with former mentor Kirsten Hellier and since Adams' marriage broke up. That's a lot of upset in one year.

Poppe is clearly a capable and skilled man. Not only does he have a well-verified CV in the throwing arts but he is a cheerful, avuncular type with a clear vision of what Adams had to do to go to the next level.

In a two-hour interview back in September, I was exposed to the full force of the Poppe personality. I left impressed. He had described in detail, and with illustrative actions, the work they were doing to change her technique.

Poppe said that, while Adams was enormously strong overall, she wasn't terribly strong in areas of her body that produced what they were seeking: speed; the explosive, across-the-circle velocity that results in the release of an athletic force that could carry Adams' shot-putting to new heights.

In short, she was a strength shot putter who had pretty much reached the ceiling where improvements could be made to that strength, Poppe said. He wanted to turn her into a shot putter who could harness that strength with explosive speed and force.

"What we are trying to do is like a transformation - from a truck into a Ferrari," he said.

I hope that sentence didn't come back to haunt him. There are some tales beginning to surface now of personal differences between the two, even though it looked like the charming and cheerful Poppe was a good foil to Adams' occasionally smouldering intensity.

What is also clear is that Adams might have ditched Poppe but she hasn't jettisoned his teachings. The men she worked with in Switzerland - and who inadvertently turned her head - are disciples of the same discipline of speed allied with strength.

She trained with them earlier this year. Jean-Pierre Egger (the man she wants to coach her now) and Werner Gunther were both Olympic shot putters. Gunther won a bronze at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Egger was a double Olympian.

But they aren't great round-belly, squat, fire hydrants of athletes with beetle brows and hair sprouting out their ears. Egger is 1.95m tall but could also run the 100m in 10.6s. Gunther is nearly 2.1m and 120kg. He could run the 100m in less than 10.8s and could also clear 2m in the high jump.

"Those guys were fantastic," Adams told me of her 10 days training in Macolin with Egger and Gunther. "They are both big men but so athletic. And the way they moved and the range of movement they have ... I learned a lot."

She was enthused - and wants more and intends to spend more time in Europe which she clearly sees as the way to reach her goals.

It was also clear she realised what she is doing is the way to go and needs time and persistence.

"I want to do so well but these changes take time; it's only been six months and it will take a year or more," she said in September. "I am really committed to it. I have to be. I want to be. We are making these changes for a reason. I want to be even better than I was and I can't give up on it too easily. I have to really work at it."

So before we point the finger too sharply at Adams for chopping and changing, some perspective. Her split with Hellier, it turns out (see Herald on Sunday, November 21), was driven not by Adams but by Hellier - who sniffed a little at the PR spin then applied which made it appear as though it had been Adams' idea.

Her split with Poppe may or may not be driven by personal differences. Certainly the method of delivery of the message to Poppe - he found out after the story was printed in the Herald on Sunday - was not of the first order.

As for her marriage break-up, the only people who really know what happens in a marriage are the two people in it. So what we have here is one unknown; one split driven by Hellier; and one driven by Adams. Hardly the stuff of a recidivist offender, even acknowledging that Adams is not always the easiest of personalities.

What may come out of all this is a seriously motivated Valerie. Shifting from Poppe to Egger - with all the criticism that may go with it - may just spur Adams on to new levels. Sometimes, in sport, the right things happen for the wrong reasons.

She has another incentive. Hellier is now coaching a Chinese athlete whom she thinks could threaten Adams at the 2012 London Olympics. That putter, Li Ling, overtook her own personal best - and China's No1 shot putter - to win gold at the recent Asian Games, recording 19.94m. Not Adams-level stuff yet but not far off, either.

Whatever else happens to, or is caused by, Valerie Adams, we would do well to remember she is a considerable sporting personality and force; quite capable of contending with anyone's disapproval and getting on with matters anyway.

Bet against her at your peril. This kind of upset, it seems to me, is tailor-made to produce a fierce will to do well.

And if she doesn't do well, Valerie Adams will likely only have herself to blame.