She was on the verge of abandoning her coaching career before she enrolled on the WISH programme. Modules range from creative problem-solving to positive coaching culture and how to lead under pressure, arming women with the three ‘Cs’ – competence, confidence and courage. Women are given the time and space in a safe environment to work through their challenges and build a network.
“Now I feel powerful, I feel alive,” Ojokolo says. “I learnt how to stand my ground, speak up and stop hiding. I feel I’m given the respect I deserve.”
‘Women are always volunteers’
For many female coaches in athletics, gender stereotypes remain a real barrier. “I recently heard about a high-performance coach, who went to walk into the coach’s area and was told that parents weren’t allowed in the area,” reports Pike. “We had a woman who had a newborn baby. At one stage, she was giving a presentation while breastfeeding. If you want to be a high-performance coach and be a mum, you have to facilitate that.”
Long hours and time away from home for training camps and competitions make it hard for many aspiring female coaches to juggle a career with family responsibilities.
Noelle Morrissey, who will coach Ireland sprint hurdler Sarah Lavin at the Paris Games, is another WISH graduate who spent years juggling a part-time coaching career with running a bookshop business. “When it comes to coaching, women are always volunteers,” Morrissey says. “When you’re not being compensated in a big way financially, you have to ask, ‘Am I taking from my family?’ There’s always guilt around it.”
Pike insists it is a matter of when, not if, the Olympics will achieve gender parity beyond the field of play, but warns it is a marathon, not a sprint.
“What we don’t want to do is parachute women into positions and set them up to fail and do it before they’re ready and then have the backlash because they weren’t very good,” Pike says. For now, coaching remains a man’s world.