Having now got the experience of being on both sides of the line, Folkard has learnt this constant communication is key for a successful Games campaign with all her athletes.
“The most important thing during the Games is to make sure you keep that contact, and you keep that relationship.”
“That can be quite difficult to manage the athletes if you’re not with them as well. You’ve got to have a quick catch up when you do see them to make sure you see what kind of state their mind is in and see, if you need to, quickly do something to help them out.”
Folkard was one of 14 female Olympic archery coaches at Les Invalides out of 85, making her one of the shockingly few 17 per cent, a slight decline from 19 per cent at Tokyo 2020.
To achieve sustainable gender equity behind the shooting line though, societal norms must be altered to give women coaches as fair a shot at roles like these as men.
Folkard points to these norms associated with traditional men’s industries like construction as automatic disadvantages for women despite being often being more knowledgeable than their male counterparts.
“I think from right in the beginning there’s a little bit of gender bias in that girls aren’t good at equipment,” explained the two-time silver world field medallist. “If coaches allow that to happen, then that’s going to continue whereas if you help everyone learn about equipment as part of the standard part of the journey, then they’re going to get more confident in it, they’re going to be able to express their knowledge a lot better as well.”
“I think that’s something that I felt with technique, with equipment. I was a lot further behind in learning about equipment than male athletes and I think that probably makes it harder to become a coach.”
