Olympian Geoff Harris developing powerhouse Para athletes

(Photo: Geoff Harris far right, Austin Smeenk second from left)

Geoff Harris, who coached wheelchair racers Cody Fournie and Austin Smeenk to gold medals at the Paralympic Games last summer in Paris, is a problem solver.

“That’s sort of the fun about Para,” said Harris in an interview with Para Sport Nation. ‘’It’s a challenging thing. It’s being able to dive in and figure out what makes that particular athlete tick.”

Last month he was named the recipient of the Dr. Doug Clement Award as Athletics Canada’s Coach of the Year.

“As an athlete I had to rely on perfect form to be as efficient as possible,’’ said Harris, 38, who competed at the 2012 Olympic Games finishing 17^th in the men’s 800-metres.

‘’I’m essentially applying the same model to all my athletes and lean into what someone’s good at and promote more of that.”

That approach certainly proved effective for Smeenk and Fournie in Paris.

“We did a lot of simulation of how it was actually was going to be at the Paralympics,’’ Harris said. ‘’Every day on training, the athletes would do their warm-up, their drills and then sit quietly for 25 minutes because that’s what’s going to happen on the day.

‘’They had to get used to that, which was sort of out of the ordinary. That’s not how you run a workout. But we wanted to make sure they were prepared for every variable at the event.”

Based at the Athletics Canada west hub located at the Pacific Institute for Sport Education on Victoria’s Camosun College campus, Harris praised the Canadian Paralympic Team staff at the Games.

‘’As a staff, Team Canada put every back-up in place that we could have. We had an extra set of wheels and gloves. There was someone outside the call room just in case a puncture happened.

‘’That gave the athletes confidence that everything’s been done in regards to what they can’t control.”

Smeenk, from Oakville, Ont., is a national team stalwart. His move out west in 2022 was the right decision for him to reach the next level.

‘’I’ve been in this sport for 20 years and represented Canada at four world championships and two Paralympics and never got better than fourth place prior to coming out here to Victoria,’’ Smeenk told the Victoria Times Colonist in December.

‘’I started working with coach Geoff Harris here, where we have some of the best minds in Canada, and the program they designed allowed me to reach levels I never thought possible.”