Development | 8 Oct 2020

GADAL: I share my vision and help people to make their own idea and path

The expert with vast coaching experience, Michel GADAL shares his coaching philosophies in a fascinating online book. The book “Reflections on Excellence “ will be published in 5 languages. After French and English online since yesterday, German, Spanish and Portuguese versions will be available next week.

Who can have benefits of reading this book?

“Of course this book is for table tennis family but, as I focus on principles of Excellence, could be useful for other sports and also managers,” explained GADAL.

What kind of new approach book offers?

“ I am proposing to approach table tennis as a complex system not limiting learning to a sequence of elements as technique, fitness, mental...To become a champions players need to trust their intuition, use their creativity not to be only good technicians!”

Which angle you used in the book?

“I always had a passion for excellence in sports. I found out that champions have common qualities . In the book I share my description of these qualities and ask a simple question. If these qualities exist why they don't form the basis and the core of the training of our athletes?”

What inspired you to made this book?

“ I feel very lucky to work with Top players, to work around top coaches and to work with many associations. Therefore I wanted to share all these experiences with as many people as possible. My goal is not to tell what we should do but to share my vision and help people to make their own idea and path,” concluded Michel GADAL.

The French coach, who guided compatriot Jean-Philippe Gatien to the world championship men’s singles gold in 1993, was at the helm of the England performance team from 1998 until 2001, when he returned to his homeland as national technical director. He held that role until 2013, since when he has worked with a number of national federations to develop their high-performance programmes.

He says: “Performance is a complex system and I have put into the heart of this book my view about this complexity in order to add a new dimension to our work . . . to your work.

“I am convinced that champions possess common qualities which without a doubt form the basis of excellence. This is why I wanted to question our traditional approach to training – are we taking these common qualities into account in our strategy from the very beginning?”