EARLY risers going for a dawn jog or maybe walking the dog around Blackbridge would have seen one of the best sporting partnerships in the city at work over the past few weeks.

At 6.30am sharp coach Lorraine Shaw and athlete Zoe Derham would meet at the Blackbridge hammer circle for a one-hour work-out before Derham left for work in Stroud.

The pair would quickly get down to work, Derham going through her drills as Shaw watched intently, passing on tips, correcting the technique and generally urging on her protégé as the Beijing Olympic Games loom ever closer.

As a theatre of sport goes the Blackbridge athletics facility doesn’t quite match the passion and fervour at Kingsholm or Whaddon Road let alone the fabled ‘Bird’s Nest’ Olympic Stadium in the Chinese capital.

But over the past 10 years, since 27-year-old Derham linked up with Shaw after moving to the city from Yate to enrol at the University of Gloucestershire, the pair have spent hundreds of hours together at Blackbridge working to this point.

“I would say Lorraine knows me really well,” said Derham with a rueful smile. “She definitely knows when I’m not putting it all into training - and she lets me know!

“Lorraine is very honest and direct. If you do something right she will tell you but if you do it wrong she’ll be shouting at you: ‘What the hell are you doing?’.

“She is very direct and to the point but that is good and I have no problem with that. There are no hidden meanings.

“If I have a bad competition we have a rule that we only spend a day discussing it and then we move on and start afresh. We don’t let it fester on all week and affect training.”

Shaw certainly doesn’t use sporting spin to dress up her athletes’ performances, whether they are Olympians like Derham or her ever-expanding group of athletes from across the county.

Anyone of a sensitive disposition is unlikely to last long so that speaks volumes for the quiet, a times rather shy, Derham who has really blossomed under Shaw’s guidance.

“When I first linked up with Lorraine she was still competing so it was hard for her to coach and concentrate on her own throwing,” said Derham.

“But since she retired she has been able to devote more time to me and Carys (Parry) and we have both benefited hugely.

“I was always there or thereabouts but I feel I have really come on in the last season or two.

“Yes, she is hard to please but that is a good thing because she knows what I can do and clearly believes I can do a lot better and keeps pushing me on.

“You need to know when things are not right so that you can correct them and I don’t think anyone knows more about hammer throwing than Lorraine.”

So how can Derham keep her coach happy while she is in Beijing and Shaw is at home in Gloucester watching events on television?

“I would love to throw well and make the final, that would be a great achievement for me,” said Derham.

“But if I don’t make the final but still throw well that will be okay. If I can throw a personal best (currently 68.63m) then I can’t ask for more - and if I do that then I may even get Lorraine’s British record (68.93m). That would be very nice.”

I think the coach would be happy with that too.