Coach Cooper relishes working with Thompson

He explained that their long friendship has made the transition easy for them to pass on their knowledge in athletics.

Often times when sprinter Thompson is conducting an athletics camp in Trinidad and Tobago, Cooper is by his side sharing his knowledge of strength and conditioning, speed work, agility and power.

One of the camps where Cooper and Thompson combined their knowledge was at the second annual Primary Schools Track and Field Development Camp in conjunction with Atlantic in November. Cooper and Thompson also got help from 2016 TT Olympian Marcus Duncan.

Cooper confessed that teaming with the triple Olympic medallist is always enjoyable.

“Working with Richard is always a fun time. We grew up together, (he’s) my best friend, like family. We have fun regardless and now that we combine our friendship with our love for the sport of athletics it’s a phenomenal experience.” Cooper explained that Thompson and himself have an excellent understanding which helps them run successful camps. “Everytime we get out there, it is not a lot of planning, we know what we going to do and we feed off each other’s energy and I think the people around us whether it is kids, or teenagers or adults feel that and they feed off that energy and we just come out there, we just have fun teaching, passing on that information.” Cooper acknowledged that many of the camps they have hosted were possible with help from Atlantic and Gatorade.

“We both just volunteered our time because it was something we wanted to do and it is another culture we want to create that camps and clinics — yes it is fun, but it is a learning experience, it is a very big development tool. When Atlantic and Gatorade (one day decide to) pull out, we will need the parents to invest, we will need the athletes themselves to invest.” Cooper explained that when he helped Thompson with strength work in the past, he was a bit sceptical because he always wants his friend to benefit.

“The strength part was a little bit more frustrating for me because he is like family and you never want to do wrong by family.

So as confident as I was in my ability I still wanted to make sure everything was right for him because I wanted him to succeed. But you get past that, it is just about the smiles and then seeing the success after that.”