Club and County Road Show in Kent

London Swimming and Kent County ASA worked in partnership to deliver an Aquatics Road show for clubs in South East London at Erith Leisure Centre. Athletes enjoyed a camera session with English Talent Coach Mick Hepwood and a Master Class with London Swimming’s new Water Polo Coach Nikola Jovanovic. Each athlete went away with an individual DVD of them undertaking all the different strokes and turns from an underwater viewpoint. Mick Hepwood the London Talent Coach and ex Olympic Coach gave each swimmer individual feedback, which he hopes the swimmers will feed back to their club coaches. 

Following this practical experience was a Youth Council for the athletes to find out what they want from their sport. Which could be summarised as ‘younger coaches, young officials and better music during training and at competitions’. The participants had particular likes and dislikes around swimming training and competition. 

Meanwhile parents and coaches attended a session by leading physio Jonathan McComish and sports psychologist Danielle Adams on supporting their athletes (Physio Presentation / Psychology Presentation). They then had a session on ‘A strategy to Get London Swimming 2008-2012+’ by Colin Brown, Director of London Swimming. Which looked in more detail at London’s three overarching objectives:

1) More people into more pools
2) Clear performance pathways that deliver internationally
3) A real / realistic legacy from 2012

Finally everyone came together for the motivational talk from the canoeing Olympic medallist Ian Wynne, who was born in Kent. Ian won a bronze medal at the Athens Olympic Games in 2004 despite having an ankle injury from a freak accident the afternoon before his race. Everyone was amazed at Ian’s story and impressed with the determination he showed to achieve his dreams. Ian was able to relate to the swimmers, as he too had once been a swimmer competing in some of the same Kent competitions as the swimmers he was talking to.

London Swimming would like to thank Jenni Verhorevoort for all the hard work she put into ensuring the day was a success. 

London Swimming is planning to run more Aquatic Road Shows in partnership with the other County Associations culminating in our Annual Conference on September 14th.