Dave Crosbee is the Director of High Performance at the VIS, with responsibility for all aspects of performance, including coaching, performance services and data intelligence projects. His son, Mark Crosbee, is a VIS scholarship athlete in canoe and World Junior Champion.
Dave Crosbee
Mark was in part the reason why I stepped back from front line coaching. My wife Rachel was pregnant with him, and the previous few years I had been spending over six months of the year on the road, and I wasn't sure that was the lifestyle I really wanted as a father.
When Mark and his sister Sarah were youngsters, we'd get in boats and Mark just loved paddling. They both do. He took it on from there.
All his life I’ve been working in high performance sports, and canoeing has been part of the family all his life.
There's never been a pressure or an expectation that either of the kids should take up high performance sport. If anything, it has probably been the other way, that it's not as easy as you think it is - particularly in a sport like slalom.
The frustrating bit is that there's so many ways to win in the sport, so you need to be really adaptive as a coach and as an athlete and understand that you'll have some strengths and weaknesses compared to others - but that's fine, play to your strengths and work on your weaknesses.
You have to do it for the love of it, not expecting there's a tangible reward that comes out of it. The ultimate thing is that they have to be enjoying it.
They're under some pretty significant shadows, of which I'd actually say Rachel and I are the least significant.
We both competed in canoe slalom back in the UK, as members of the British team. Rachel is a two-time Olympian and multiple World Cup and World Championship medallist.
But Mark’s uncle is Richard Fox, a five-time world champion who dominated the sport for a decade, and his aunt is Myriam Fox who is a multiple world champion and Olympic medallist. They have two daughters, Jessica and Noemie, who are Mark’s cousins.
Jessica is a multiple world champion and Olympic gold medallist, and Noemie is also an Olympic and world championship team gold medallist.
That's a fair shadow to operate under.
Photo: Marks' first day paddling on Penrith. From left: Dave Crosbee, Mathieu Biazizzo, Mark Crosbee, Jessica Fox, Richard Fox.
But both of them, if they want to continue and operate in high performance slalom, they're going to have to find their own way and deal with it because it isn't going to go away.
To be clear I've never really wanted to coach Mark. A perfect world for me, from the outset, would've been he paddles, and I just be a parent.
The nature of our coaching relationship probably changed and became more integral to his approach during COVID, because of all the lockdowns, the only way he could get coaching was with me, because you could only have two people to go paddling.
He has since moved up to Penrith and in an ideal world I'm trying to be more of a mentor because he's got to develop a strong coaching relationship with others, so I'm trying to support him to do that.
He's quite intense, although there's no expectation from myself or Rachel. He's been very self-driven. Going through COVID, he trained bloody hard, but it was all him.
His biggest strength could be his biggest weakness, his intensity. I think he puts a lot of expectation on himself, but you probably need some of that if you're going to be an elite level athlete.
A constant discussion I try and have with him is to focus on himself.
Canoe slalom is the type of sport where you can do very little to impact the other athletes, the course designer and the river set a puzzle, and you've just got to find the best way you can to solve that puzzle, and then you look at results.
I'm not going to hide from the fact that high-performance sport is ultimately measured on your success, and that's why athletes are in it, but I think you've got to keep in mind a bigger picture.
I think that's really important, particularly for Mark at the moment with those performance shadows he lives under.
For me it’s all about is he enjoying it? That’s my only hope.
Photo credit: JGRimages
Mark Crosbee
Both my parents were paddlers, so that helped me get into what is a relatively niche sport.
While my relationship with other sports has changed, I’ve always been around paddling.
I can't remember a time without boats and paddling in my life.
They were definitely a little cautious about me pursuing paddling, they know what it takes.
The main thing was always reassuring me that I didn't have to do it if I didn't enjoy it.
My dad was a really good paddler when he was younger, before he retired early and started coaching at a very high level, at the 2000 Olympics and with the British World Championship team, so he's coached a lot of very good paddlers.
I imagine it would be an interesting challenge to coach me. I think it can be difficult to separate the parent from the coach and, from their end, decipher if I’m not enjoying it or if I’m just having a bad session.
But having them has really helped me overall, in reminding me to ask myself if I am still enjoying the sport. There was never any pressure to follow their path, or the family's path - so that was really helpful, I knew there was never any pressure.
When we had that success in Ivrea in 2022 at the Junior World Championships, I think that was really special for Dad.
He was my primary coach until I moved up here to Penrith, and now I'm in the NSO (National Sports Organisation, Paddle Australia) system in Sydney, so now he’s moved into more of a mentor role.
It’s a tricky dynamic, but when we get it right it’s really good.
I am quite competitive, sometimes too competitive, but I think a lot of athletes have that issue, just being around sports, having that dream, having a family to look up to and seeing that it is possible.
Occasionally when I was younger, I'd find an excuse not to go to training sometimes, when I just wanted to stay in bed. But I don't make those excuses now, because I know what I need to do and I enjoy it. It's almost like I make the choice to enjoy it in those tough points.
During the lockdowns, my dad was still sacrificing his time to coach me, so I had to respect his choice to get up early as well. Those times taught me a lot about the sacrifices that coaches and support staff have to make, for me to do what I love.
The main thing that my parents always try and emphasise is that the results matter less than the experience. However, knowing that I also want the results, they also look for ways to support me in that.
Dad has really emphasised the importance of building up a bank of experience to help me in the future, to focus on that as the main thing, and not the results.
In training, the most difficult thing to separate is the father versus coach relationship, so I've got to stop thinking about him as my dad and focus more on being objective.
It's been a process to get to that point and I'm still learning, even with other coaches.
When it comes to the big races, I'll usually get my dad's advice on the course, and we'll communicate that with Titouan, my coach, and then I'll be talking with Titouan on the race day.
There were definitely times where I didn’t know if I wanted to keep going, but when I get on the water, it’s just about that feeling of paddling down a river, doing the thing I love.
Knowing that I could stop at any point and that I'd be fine, makes me realise that it's a complete choice, I would be fine whatever way I go, but this is what I love doing.
There’s a balance in switching off at home, because I was always with my coach, everyone in the house is a paddler, so it’s always a hard one to not talk about paddling for once.
But at the same time, when it comes to the difficult times, you're surrounded by the people who you trust and who can understand you.
When I had my rib stress fracture, having him at the house counting the sets on the Watt bike, was really helpful and meant that I wasn’t alone in the pain cave.
I think that's been one of the biggest helps in going through some of the hardest points.
It has taught me a lot of the skills I need to create strong relationships with my coaches and support team.
Photo: Mark and Dave Crosbee talking after the 2022 Junior World Championship heat run in K1.
