Handball-Upgrading handballers’ and coaches’ knowledge |21 September 2004

For the whole of this week, local handball players and coaches will get the opportunity to upgrade their knowledge of the game by participating in a coaching course.

The course was officially opened on Monday morning at the Seychelles National Olympic Committee (Snoc) headquarters at Stad Linite, Roche Caïman, by Snoc president Antonio Gopal.

President for the ceremony were National Sports Council managing director Eric Arnephy, Seychelles Handball Federation chairman Norbert Dogley, Snoc secretary general Robert Auguste and Malagasy coach Léon Thomas.

German Wolfgang Lowak, a former German international who has also worked as national coach in Bahrain, is the International Handball Federation lecturer for the week-long course organised by Snoc and the International Olympic Solidarity.

Lecturer Lowak has said that he will start by teaching the fundamentals before moving on to technical, physical and tactical aspects of handball, both in theory and in practice.

Also on the course agenda are training principles, preparation of teams and tendencies of development in world handball backed by examples taken from results of the 2003 World Cup in Portugal, the 2004 European Championship and the recent Olympic Games in Athens, Greece.

German Lowak explained that his main task is to “improve the coaching level of local coaches and their ability to work with a team, both in training and during matches.”

He also noted that he expects the participants to learn new things to add to their training plans so that the level of handball will improve here.

In his opening speech, Snoc president Gopal said that he hoped the participants would, after having followed the course, be better equipped to improve their players’ playing ability so that they can play on a par with their opponents of the Indian Ocean region.

It is to note that the handball course is the first technical course organised by Snoc this year. Another two are expected be organised before the end of the year. Those are football during the last week of October and swimming in November.

Meanwhile, a sports medicine course was organised earlier this year and it was ran by Seychellois sports doctor Kenneth Sherwin who is based in Reunion.

G. G.