Charles van Commenée

Charles Van Commenee was born June 22nd 1958, and grew up in Osdorp, a borough of Amsterdam. From an early age he was instilled with a strong work ethic. He competed in the decathlon and the 200 metres as a young man but a hamstring injury forced him to give up the sport. His first foray into the world of athletics came at the age of 18 when he began teaching children whilst he was studying for a degree in physical education, and this was to have a lasting impact. After he had completed his military service in 1981, he decided to dedicate himself to coaching full time and in 1987 he was appointed as the coach for the Dutch javelin team. Building upon his coaching success, in 1992 he was promoted to technical director of combined events and throws by the Dutch athletics federation. He took on other coaching responsibilities, including a brief stay in China where he met shotput thrower Huang Zhihong. His first involvement with UK athletics came in 1994 when he started working with British athlete Denise Lewis, who, Under the guidance of Charles, would go on to become champion at both the Commonwealth Games and European Championships in 1998 before taking a silver medal at the 1999 World Championships. At the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games Denise took gold to become Olympic Champion. She put much of her success and 'drive to win' down to the fact that Charles had been so focused. Following his continued success with many of Britain's top athletes, Charles was in 2004 considered for the position of UK Athletics head of performance. Ultimately however, Charles decided to leave the UK in favour of becoming Performance Director of the Netherlands Olympic Committee. He went onto lead the country to their second-highest ever Olympic medal tally at the 2008 Beijing Olympic. A year later he returned to the UK to take up the position of head coach. Today he is one of the world's leading experts on Performance Management. He is represented in the UK by Useful Sports.