The World According to Gar
The World According to Gar is a completely personal podcast based on the unique life experiences of Gar Leyshon. Gar is currently a track and field coach, and more specifically the personal coach of The World's Greatest Athlete: Damian Warner, the Olympic Gold Medalist in decathlon from the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. But this podcast is not just about sports and coaching the decathlon; Gar also talks, rants and swears about politics, pandemics and pinheads who piss him off. And he does so from the perspective of a man who has lived and worked in Taiwan, Australia, England, Scotland, the USA and on an oil rig in the arctic. On top of that Gar, who retired from teaching in 2021, has taught and coached for 25 years, has a wife and 2 teenaged sons, and STILL doesn’t drink! He does however, have a bad attitude and an ugly ass beard to match. So, if you are looking for a sports themed podcast about coaching world class athletics, with plenty of bizarre stories, strong opinions and foul language, then you are in the right place!
- Update frequency
- every 8 days
- Average duration
- 44 minutes
- Episodes
- 197
- Years Active
- 2020 - 2024
Episode 57: Celebrating records or disputing drug tests?
This has been a weird week for Track and Field and I believe we spend too much time on positive drug tests and suspensions and not enough celebrating World Records. And Global Warming/C…
Episode 56: National Championships 2021
Damian competed in long jump and the 110 hurdles at Nationals in Montreal. It was an ... interesting but ultimately successful competition.
Episode 55: Father's Day
I've been lots of things and done a variety of jobs but nothing is more important or fulfilling to me than being a father.
Episode 54: Quarantine Thoughts
I try consider the idea of survivor bias in coaching but end up talking about the horror of the mass murder of the Afzaal family last week here in London Ontario. Morality and mortality…
Episode 53: Dennis and I talk Gotzis
I talk to Dennis about Damian's fantastic results at Gotzis and the plan moving forward to the Olympics. And the super cool robotics (sort of?) factory we toured in Austria!
Episode 52: Damian Warner wins Gotzis 2021!!
Holy shit what a performance, and just in time for the one year anniversary of my podcast! We had a fantastic weekend in Austria and Damian kicked ass and took names! I'm a little fired…
Episode 51: Do athletes have a voice?
Olympic athletes have to sign away their right to protest or use their own images to make money during the Olympics, and anybody going to the Olympics cannot post on social media withou…
Episode 50: Dealing with Stress
We went to Toronto to compete for the first time this year and it was VERY stressful. Dealing with stress is the key to success and I talk about how our mental coach J.F. Menard has hel…
Episode 49: Decathlon scoring explained!
I compare Olympians to 17 Year Cicadas, and then try to explain the history and complexity of decathlon scoring, and then rant about Covid-19 being an airborne disease.
Episode 48: Thinking Outside the Box
Sometimes solutions to problems are found in unusual places where "specialists" in the field might never think to look. The longer we do something, be it coaching track and field, pract…
Episode 47: Overcoming Fear and Fatigue
Fear and fatigue are the enemies of performance. So how does somebody like Alex Honnold handle fear? How does Ashton Eaton push himself to break the world record in decathlon?
Episode 46: The importance of having a "Home"
Traveling around the world to compete as a professional athlete is more difficult, and much less glamorous, than most people think. And if you want to be the best in the world then havi…
Episode 45: How did I get here? Part 1
Just me trying to figure out how the hell I ended up where I am today. This may take a while!
Episode 44: Inequality and the Abuses of Power
Eyewitness testimony in the Derek Chauvin trial and calls to boycott the 2022 Olympics set me OFF this week! I rant about everything from China's horrific treatment of minorities to coa…
Episode 43: Is the system too big to succeed?
This week I talk about how funding works, or doesn't, in the Canadian sports system. I draw some parallels between the wildly unsuccessful business model at UBER and the equally unsucce…
Episode 42: A year's worth of Pandemic
The (dubious) one year anniversary of the Pandemic got me thinking about the past year, and the rapidly approaching Olympics. Only four months to go before the Olympics start in Tokyo!
Episode 41: Guts and Brains
The complexity of our bodies is so great that it seems miraculous that they work at all, let alone as well as they do for elite athletes. I talk about nutrition and the brain and how I …
Episode 40: The Goldilocks Zone
This week I use science to explain the metaphor of the "Goldilocks Zone" and how coaches can not only get athletes there but keep them in "the zone". I also rant about the value of scho…
Episode 39: Is there a Plan B?
I talk about full moons, ducks, mental fatigue and Damian's mental coach J.F. Menard. Then I lose my shit about democracy and the clowns in charge. Last chapter of Ventland Book 1 as we…