Ian Thorpe
"For myself, losing is not coming second. It's getting out of the water knowing you could have done better. For myself, I have won every race I've been in...."
my swim down under

This week I swam with one of Australia's top clubs - Vicentre. Based in the 2006 Commonwealth Games pool in Melbourne Vicentre has some of Australia's best swimmers and regularly competes with the other big Australian swim club based just down the road, called Nunawading (where Ellen Gandy and Leisel Jones train). I wanted to get a taste of how they do things on the other side of the world in another great swimming country, so after a few weeks of email correspondence with their head coach Ian Pope I ended up standing on the poolside at 6.50am on a Friday morning ready to fly the flag for Great Britain’s Masters swimmers... in my own very small way.

Before I jumped in I got talking to Alex Hirschauer, their Nationals coach. He explained that although Mebourne has the top clubs in Australia most of the elite swimmers in it don’t come from the city but from the other States further north. This is mainly because the weather is better up north (sadly not something we can say in the UK!) and consequently the schools up there have their own outdoor pools, breeding the next generation of Aussie swimmers. Anyway, after explaining what I’m doing in the world of swimming Alex introduced me to the club’s swimmers, which is when things started to go badly wrong...

“OK, hi everyone, this is Simon. He’s a Great Britain swimmer and he’s joining in with us this morning.”

Cue very long pause as a wall of incredulous Australian faces tried to understand how the bald, knackered Masters swimmer standing infront of them could possibly be in the GBR team. I immediately tried to correct the error but the damage was done, because there was now an expectation that I was some sort of expert swimmer. I groaned in silence.

This illusion was immediately shattered when I got in the pool and started swimming. With no idea which was the equivalent of City of Sheffield Masters Lane 4 (i.e. the one with the ”medium-to-well slow pace”) I guessed, found a lane, dived in and started thrashing up and down the pool like a madman desperately trying to remember everything my long-suffering coaches had told me. But after two lengths I heard something like this from Alex...

“Simon, you swim like a typical Englishman – stiff!”

In my defence I hadn’t swam that early in the morning for about a hundred years, but I was beginning to regret the high profile visit, thinking instead it would have been better to have gone in undercover. But now it was too late. Alex gave me some really useful coaching tips and after the warm-up and a quick 400m it was time for the session to kick off properly...

“OK, we’re doing 20 x 100m sprints.”

At that point I wanted the pool to swallow me up and I had a feeling this monster set was partly for my benefit (but I may be wrong ;) However somehow I managed to keep up (just) and I got some more useful technique tips along the way – including something about my feet behaving like brakes, or fakes, or he may have said cakes. Something very bad anyway!

My thanks to Alex and everyone else at Vicentre for making the ‘pom’ feel so welcome down under. I really enjoyed the session and despite not being able to move the next day hope to come back soon - if I'm allowed back in the pool that is.

What of course they don’t know is that I'm part of an extremely cunning plan by British Swimming to deliberately lull the Aussies into a false sense of security ahead of the Olympics next year.

I like to feel I'm doing my part for my country ;)

Posted: 28th August 2011
it 'ain't over 'til it's over

First off I know its been a very, very long time since the last post... but in my defence I have been rather busy photographing clubs, swimmers, divers and just about everything else that moves in a pool.

Last weekend I was lucky to be present at the FINA World Diving Series in Ponds Forge. I volunteered to take some behind-the-scenes shots, because after all the diving photography I've done I wanted to be present at a world-class diving event and see some of the world's greats do great things. Also over the last couple of years I've fallen in love with diving; I think because it has a wonderful mixture of beauty, grace, skill and courage (everything I lack!). Almost dancing in the air. But the FINA event last weekend had all this and something extra - real excitement.

This may sound crazy, but to an ordinary person like me it was like watching a human darts match - where the pool was the darts board and the divers the darts! Each time the diver hit the water at up to 40 mph there was a massive cheer from the crowd - or hushed gasp if they go it wrong - and as the competition progressed the stakes got higher and higher, with the divers having to do harder dives. The organisers did a great job because not only could you watch each dive again on a giant TV in slow-motion playback, but two commentators clearly explained what was going on ("Tom is now attempting a forward four-and-a-half somersaults double twist with triple pike action reverse handstand"). This brought the whole thing to life for ordinary folk like me and I was totally and utterly riveted. Also the pool area was completely transformed with lights, carpet and black back-drops into a sort-of aquatics amphitheatre. Brilliant! Please can we have more diving events like this!

What I hadn't appreciated is the amount of psychological warfare that goes on. The divers know what dives the other divers do and their scores - "anything you can do I can do better" - and if they do one bad dive it's probably game over. So they've got to wait their turn listening and watching the divers and the crowd around them trying to stay calm and focused. I heard Tom Daley saying in an interview he never gives up because even if he does a bad dive he knows his opponent might do an even worse one - so he could still win. "It 'ain't over 'til it's over" as they say...

What will I remember the most? The Chinese. They're in a league of their own, but as Tom and Pete proved they can be beaten. I got a shot of the two Chinese women 10m Synchro divers entering the water exactly together... literally millimetres between them. Unbelievable. But congratulations to Tom and Pete for winning the 10m Synchro gold medal and well done to all the other GB divers - especially 16 year old Megan Sylvester because she had to take part in the competition at the very last minute with virtually no preparation as a consequence (pairing up with Rebecca Gallantree in the 10m Synchro).

By the way... I managed to get some great shots of the divers away from the diving - including the all-powerful Chinese divers actually SMILING!

You see - they are human after all ;)

Posted: 18th April 2011
being the fittest and fastest isn't always enough

Watching the Commonwealth Games in Delhi last month I learnt something very important - being the fittest and fastest swimmer isn't always enough to win races. Because how well you start, turn and finish is often the difference between success and failure. Team GB had a fantastic games and came back with a load of silverware, but we lost out on medals we could have won if we'd just been a bit quicker off the blocks, or off the wall, or timed the finish better.

In most finals the time difference between swimmers is very small (apart from the legendary Rebecca Adlington finals of course!), so every 100th of a second counts - a lot. During the games I found myself screaming at the TV in frustration watching swimmers who'd put absolutely everything into a race coast into the finish, only to have their medal or place snatched away from them at the death. I never thought I'd hear myself say it, but all that technical stuff really does matter... Personally I HATE practising starts, turns and occasionally finishes in Masters sessions (who wants to climb out of a lovely warm pool?!), but now I see why it's so important.

In my humble and very ill-informed opinion the master of all this technical stuff is Liam Tancock. In his world of 50m and 100m sprinting there is absolutely no room for error (especially when you can't see where you're going!) and he literally EXPLODES off the wall at the start of a race and powers into the finish like a cruise missile without ever taking his foot of the accelerator... If you hear the starter hooter finish when you're still standing on the blocks you're already too late. One of the GB track sprinters used to say something like "You've got to go on the 'B' of BANG!"

Sadly in my case I'm usually still adjusting my goggles, tying up my Speedos and checking I'm in the right lane when most people have left the blocks - so lots more technical training for me I think.

Posted: 2nd November 2010



when was the last time you said thanks?

I was thinking the other day (it happens now and again) it must be a really tough job being a coach... You've got your club demanding results, you've got your young kids demanding attention, you've got your older athletes demanding success, and you've got your kids' parents, well, being demanding ;)

Everyone’s demanding something.

Yet when your athletes succeed you rarely get the true credit and recognition you deserve. On competition day it's all about the athletes, never the coaches. And the same goes for all the club and event volunteers who work tirelessly behind the scenes supporting the athletes, clubs and sport as a whole.

So the next time you win, or do well, or just finish a training session... go up to your coach and say 'thanks'.

It might also get you an easier training set the next day :)  Works for me every time because so far I've avoided the dreaded timed 1500M's  (THANKS ANDY).

Posted: 30th July 2010

the Brits 2010

Seeing what I saw at the British Championships last week I’m not sure what would have been worse... being a coach or being an athlete. As a coach you had to sit in the spectator gallery, cooking away in the 120 degrees heat nervously watching your prodigies. Whilst as an athlete you had to perform infront of all your fellow club swimmers, fans, friends and family knowing it was make or break for a place at the Commonwealth Games. Coach or swimmer I’d of been a total nervous wreck - so I was pleased all I had to do was take pictures.

Many people think swimming pools are lousy places to take photographs in... terrible lighting, awful boring background, lots of camera-wrecking water, hot and humid environment, no decent spaces etc. Sure, if there was nothing but the pool and the building then I’d agree. But when you add top class athletes and a big competition into the mix and shake it around you end up with a very potent cocktail that has all the right ingredients to make good photographs. I came away with over 100 images from the two days I was at the Brits, but one of my favourites is the picture opposite:

For me it seems to capture that really intense, special moment in time just before a race when swimmers get ready to walk to the starting blocks. This is the sort of shot you could never get in a photo studio – it has to be captured in real life with real athletes and real race conditions. So I can live with the terrible pool lighting, awful backgrounds etc. (but the camera-wrecking water is still a bit of a problem ;)

Well done to everyone who competed. Some brilliant swims and I can’t wait until the Commonwealth Games.

Posted: 9th April 2010





thoughts on the Duel in the Pool 2009

There were more than a few times last Friday - day one of the Duel in the Pool competition - when I thought I'd died and gone to swimming heaven...

I turned up early on the Friday morning to try and get some fun, relaxed shots of the USA and E-Stars teams warming up in the pool - my hunch being these would make the best pictures. Some of the biggest stars from the world of swimming would be there, including our own Becky Adlington and of course Phelps, so I expected the usual crush of photographers, journalists and hangers-on.
 
Unlimited poolside access meant I could get up close and personal with the swimmers and not have to stick a lens the size of a dustbin on the end of my camera. For a knackered old Masters swimmer like myself this was about as good as it gets.

So I arrived early, signed in with the lovely British Swimming media department and stepped into another world. Manchester Aquatics Centre had been totally transformed into something between a Roman amphitheatre and rock concert stage. It had wall-to-wall seating, lighting, sound systems, TV cameras, banners, roadies and security guards. Unbelievable. Right away I knew this was going to be a special day...

A seasoned pool-side photography veteran like myself knows wearing shorts is a must if you're not going to melt, so I tried to find somewhere to quickly change. But the only place I could find was the disabled toilet (naughty I know, but I was only going to be a minute) so I nipped in and started to change. About 10 seconds later I heard someone outside trying to get in expressing in no uncertain terms her dismay at finding someone else already in there.

"Hang on, I'll just be a second,"  I cried out.
"Don't worry," came the reply.
"No honestly, it's OK I'm coming out right now."

I opened the door and there was Becky Adlington standing outside the door in swimming costume. A perfect start to the day - and no, I did not try and get a picture ;)  I knew if I had of done she'd of probably grabbed my camera and thrown it in the pool.

Anyway I made it to the pool to discover only a handful of photographers, most of whom knew absolutely nothing about swimming, and started to think this was going to be my lucky day.  Around the pool the atmosphere was electric.  There were school children everywhere watching the warm-up and trying to get autographs (you can see them in some of the pictures).  James Hickman was also there as Compare, whipping the
kids into a frenzy and fuelling the excitement.  Everywhere I looked were swimming superstars...  Phelps, Adlington, Spofforth, Rock, Tancock, Hoff, Soni, Vanderkaay, Halsall etc. etc. Was I really in Manchester?!

My hunch was right and the best shots of the day were from that morning warm-up session - but you can judge for yourself. Afterwards I got talking to some of the US team coaches (gave them a few valuable coaching tips I'd picked up from the City of Sheffield Swim Squad Masters) and I told them what a great idea I thought the Duel in the Pool was.

'Yep, it's a really great idea,' replied one of the Americans who pointed to the guy standing next to him and said, 'So tell him... it was his idea, he started it...' I could think of nothing to say in reply.

The Duel in the Pool was a truly multi-national event and I think the choice of swimming costume for the warm-up session said something about each nationality. Most of the US team girls wore matching designer costumes - all very slick, conservative and consumer branded. The GB team girls wore whatever they wanted - so we had a range of different designs from fun beachwear to shocking pink. And the Italian men and women wore, well, not a lot really. The guys looked like they were modelling Y-Fronts for GQ magazine and some of the Italian girls wore what looked like a couple of pieces of string tied together at the back.

The two day competition itself was really special and I hope it marks the beginning of a new era for British swimming. Our country and especially our athletes need more events like this in the run up to 2012. There can be no better training for Team GB than experiencing the real thing on home ground, and what we saw in Manchester last week was just a taster of what the Olympics will bring in 2012. Imagine the 3,000 people in Manchester multiplied by SIX - that's how big the crowd will be. But it's not just the invaluable training and preparation it provides for our athletes - it also brings swimming to life. It makes it real, exciting and relevant for the young kids who watched it and probably spend hours of their life every week doing it... when their friends are sitting around at home watching TV or playing computer games. I saw first hand what it meant to the children when I photographed them lining up for autographs after the warm-up. Their faces said it all.

The big question is this: would it have been the same event without Phelps? Probably not, but surely we could organise smaller Duels - for example GB versus Germany or Italy - in a cheaper, scaled down version of the one we saw last week?

The Duel in the Pool was also the moment some of our athletes showed their true class... Rocky beating Phelps, Halsall's win, Simmonds' record-beating swim and Adlington's return to winning ways.  Becky was under huge pressure to win on Saturday in front of a big home crowd and live BBC TV. But she did it, and proved she can be both the celebrity hero AND race winning athlete at the same time.  A turning point?

So over the next couple of years I look forward to more Duels, more magnificent international racing and more Italian swimming costumes ;)

Happy Christmas everyone.

Posted: 23rd December 2009






























































a bit of an attitude is a good thing

Every now and again I read something that really hits the mark, something that absolutely makes sense. This happened when I picked up the December issue of The Swimming Times and read the piece on page 9 titled: 'Finding Factor X: Sir Clive on taking talent to the top'. In it the legendary Sir Clive Woodward talks about his formula for indentifying and coaching world-class athletes. If you haven't seen it go and pull your copy of The Swimming Times out of the recycling bin, make yourself a cup of tea and read it.  There are real words of wisdom from Sir Clive, things like:

'Athletes need more than natural talent to become champions... They also need the ability to learn, to think under pressure and to work hard.'

He goes on to say, 'But my biggest message is that talent alone is not enough. Talent gets you into this room but there is talent all over the world... The key is how you coach pressure... Most people will perform under pressure if at least they have thought about it. 

'It is attitude that sets champions apart from the rest.'

I am not a coach, and I am certainly not a past or present world-class athlete (does coming 3rd out of 3 competitors in a South Yorkshire Masters 100m breaststroke race count?!). But through the GBswimstars project I am gradually meeting more and more people who are, and they all have something in common... total, utter dedication to their sport and their training. They spend hours and hours every week pounding up and down the pool, or diving off boards, or whatever they have to do.

What I notice more than anything is their attitude, especially at the competitions I attend. The superstars soak up and use the pressure and nerves to perform better than anyone else on the day. For them the pressure seems to act as a kind of performance-enhancing drug...

I'll never forgot at a Nationals final this year I was photographing some swimmers lining up for a final (I won't say which one) and everyone there was giving it the thousand yard stare routine with nervous eyes, lots of muscle slapping etc. Apart from one swimmer, who just looked at me, smiled and did a joke 'biting the fingernails' kind of mime. She looked totally relaxed - and went on to do really well in the race.

I guess superstars really do need both the talent and the attitude. 

Now I can think of quite a few British footballers and pop stars who have got plenty of attitude - but little or no talent.  So how does that work?!

Posted: 5th December 2009
the real synchro

The photo shoot at the Reading Royals Synchronised Swimming Club last month was an extraordinary experience. I took more pictures of more people in one go than I've ever done before, and tried numerous different looks and styles - including; fashion, 'mean and moody', underwater and arty (plus some others I can't even remember). In addition I used a new lighting set-up I'd never tried before that involved dangling my very expensive remote flash lighting rig precariously above the pool; plus there were other squads in and around the pool at the same time as us, so I had to keep out their way whilst avoiding getting them in the pictures. Ahhhh!!!!!!!

Despite the challenges we came away with some really great pictures and most of the ideas seemed to work - especially the underwater shots with fun and funky lighting effects.

What I saw during the photo shoot just reconfirmed my view that synchro is a beautiful sport. But it's also a sport you'd appreciate more if you could see it in slow motion above and below the water. There's just too much happening too quickly all at once for mere mortals like me to take in.

During the photo shoot we photographed a few examples of the flexibility and strength land training synchro swimmers have to do. Two of the girls formed a bridge (you can see it in the gallery), which involved them arching their backs into a semi-circle and sticking a leg vertically up in the air. I remember thinking to myself 'what's that got to do with synchro - looks more like gymnastics to me?', then they got into the water and one of the same two girls did this amazing back-flip type move. It was gymnastics on water, with the guarantee of a soft landing.

My aim now is to get some very different pictures of synchro and the swimmers who do it - and not the usual thing you see with legs in the air, head up, arms raised and fixed cheesy smile. Because...

... Synchro is a serious Olympic sport - the Russians dominate the top spot but Team GB is moving up the league table.
... It requires tremendous stamina, flexibility and technique.
... It is growing in popularity.
... In this country it is probably the most misunderstood and poorly represented of the Olympic aquatic sports (although the water polo mob might disagree).

So I look forward to photographing more synchro over the coming months and helping - I hope - to raise the profile of this wonderful sport and those involved.

Posted: 6th October 2009
synchro here I come

OK - I think I'm ready for the synchro photo shoot coming up soon with the Reading Royals. I've spent the last few weeks adapting some of my photography gear so I can (hopefully) position my lights/strobes directly over the pool and above the swimmers. This meant a bit of head scratching with the design, then a few purchases from China courtesy of eBay and a trip down the road to my local B&Q... so this photo shoot has turned into something of multi-national construction project.

I've also spent time researching what on earth synchronised swimming is all about. Synchro is the new kid on the block - not many people know about it or understand it, myself included. But after much YouTube viewing and internet trawling I'm beginning to get to know this amazingly beautiful sport and can't wait to see it in action.

Those of you who have met me may find this impossible to believe, but years ago I had dance lessons (a long story), so I have the utmost respect for what these synchro swimmers have to do in the pool. They're doing moves upside down in water that I wouldn't have attempted on land the right way up with gravity assistance - and if I had attempted would have put me in hospital for at least six months afterwards.

Probably synchro's biggest problem is everything happens so damn fast and most of the really clever stuff takes place underwater. Ordinary people like me watching it don't see the human platforms they make underwater from nothing in about five seconds to launch their 'flyer' into the air (that's the crazy person who leaps out of the water during the routine); or the strength, technique and elasticity required to do do all those whizzy moves with their legs.

So my challenge is to capture this in pictures and try and show the world what the sport's really about, what it takes to be a synchro swimmer and why the sport deserves more respect and attention than it gets at the moment... easy!

Posted: 20th September 2009
my take on the Nationals 2009

I've been to and competed in many Masters competitions over the years but this was my first time at a major competition - and what a difference... Here winning or losing meant absolutely everything to those taking part and no-where was this more evident than at the end of the races. I saw one guy punch the touch pad (the electronic board at the end of the swim lane swimmers have to touch to stop the clock) with so much force I thought his fist was going to put hole in the side of the pool, and a girl break down in tears still in the pool at the end of the race.

Another thing I learnt from the Nationals is the importance of mental preparation. When I used to compete (which was about 100 years ago when they started races not with a hooter but with a flag and you had to wear a full-length costume made of wool) my mental preparation extended as far as making sure I remembered what time my race started and what lane I was swimming in... What I saw last month was something completely different, which I tried to capture in pictures. I've no idea what went through their minds before the race or how they prepared themselves mentally; but it looked to me like there were two races going on at the same time... one in the pool and one in the mind.

This is scary stuff, so thank goodness the only thing I have to worry about is remembering which way round to swim in the lane during training - was it clockwise or anti-clockwise?!

Well done to everyone who made it to the Nationals - you should all be very proud.

Posted: 23rd August 2009
pressure - what pressure?!

There's no doubt the media frenzy before and during London 2012 will be like nothing we've experienced before. Add in a fanatical home crowd with ridiculously high expectations and you have the perfect media storm, with our athletes right in its eye. In anticipation of this British Swimming is providing some media training for the athletes, but no training is substitute for the real thing and until they reach the top level of their sport most athletes will not experience any significant media interest - and the pressure it brings.

So it's fascinating to see what effect the GBswimstars camera has on swimmers. A professional camera in a swimming pool is - for obvious reasons - a rarity, so point a camera in the direction of most young swimmers and it generates a new psychological pressure most have not experienced before. Generally they deal with this new pressure in one of three ways: they either ignore it and get on with the job at hand, or they take great exception and get visibly agitated, or they think it's absolutely hilarious and start behaving like they're auditioning for a reality TV show. Now I'm pleased to say most just ignore my camera as best they can, but maybe GBswimstars could also be viewed as a kind of introductory media training experience... although I'm no Sharon Davies!

We also do recorded interviews after the photo shoots with some of the athletes and coaching staff, and this adds to the experience for those who take part - for better or for worse!

Posted: August 2009
what it takes

The Beijing Olympics was one of the most successful games ever for Team GB and media coverage during and after the games was incredible. However, unseen were the hours and hours of training put in by the athletes before the games and tireless support provided by their families, clubs and coaches - the unsung heroes!

So what does it take to get to the top and stay there?  In the world of swimming most club swimmers are in the pool twice a day at 5.30am and 4.00pm, 5 or 6 days a week. They train 4 hours a day, combining weights and other dry land training with swims totalling around 60 kilometres a week, or 2,000 miles a year.  That's like swimming from London to Luton every week!

Here's what one of Britain's top swimmers - the open water Olympic silver medallist Keri-Anne Payne - said about her typical day (as reported in the Times in December 2008):

"5am... I have toast and jam, then head to Grand Central Pools in Stockport.
"6am... I start with a 10-minute run in the gym, followed by some core stability work using a medicine ball - working the muscles around my abdomen - then a 45-minute circuit, with sit-ups, press-ups and weights.
"7am... My first hour in the pool - a hard, fast-paced session. We’ll usually swim about 5,000 metres.
"8am... I have a cereal bar, then back to the gym for a 10km run or a cycle. Then more circuit training, with more weights, sit-ups and chin-ups.
"1pm... A couple of sandwiches for lunch, then a banana or pear, before heading back for the afternoon session at 3.30pm.
"4pm... We have half an hour for stretch work and to work on injury prevention; then it’s back in the pool for two hours.
"7pm... I head home for a dinner of pasta or steak and potatoes, sometimes chips. I don’t worry too much about my diet."

Add in the time and stress of studying or working in the day and that usually leaves just one day off a week to recover (but only if you're not swimming in competitions which are often held at weekends). There can be few sports that demand this amount of sacrifice and commitment, leaving little time for the body to recover, which means a part of you hurts all the time...

And spare a thought for the friends and family who also make big sacrifices - for example the 5.00am taxi ride to the pool every day, hanging around for two hours then the 8am taxi ride to school - with the whole thing repeated all over again in the afternoon.

Finally the clubs, coaches and volunteers also play a vital role in the making of a GB swim star - because behind every champion there is a small army of people who have helped them get there.

Posted: June 2009

coaching matters

I love the Sunday night Masters swim training session at Ponds Forge. 'Masters' is the polite name given to members of swimming and diving clubs who are past their sell-by date - which nowadays is about 25. The session is usually 'long course' (meaning it's a 50m long pool instead of 25m); so I can dive into one of the best pools in Europe, engage my brain's auto-pilot and chug up and down the swim lane for an hour like an old but well maintained tug boat. But last Sunday night I had something of a revelation - or is it an epiphany? Actually it could be a lobotomy, I'm not sure which... whatever hurts the most.

You see the problem with engaging auto-pilot and chugging up and down the pool is you never improve. You keep doing the same wrong things in the same wrong way. And to make this point crystal clear last Sunday night our long-suffering coach (Andy) dragged us out the pool and made us watch two of the best Masters swimmers in action. And that's when I had the first revelation; because as I watched these guys gliding effortlessly across the water I realised swimming's not just about raw power and fitness, but doing the right things in the right way at the right time. Which means I've got to think - not just swim.

To hammer the point home over on the other side of the pool I saw kids in another squad powering up and down with snorkels on. Snorkels? Why?! Because the snorkels let them absolutely focus on what they're doing with their arms and legs without having to worry about anything else - like breathing.

Determined to immediately correct the terrible things I'd been doing I jumped back into the pool and tried rolling my shoulders more and doing all the other technique stuff Andy said I had to do. Which is when I had my second revelation. Because now I was using muscles in a way they hadn't been used before - which meant after about 30 minutes everything hurt really badly and I felt awful - but I knew I was swimming better. I'd begun the the long hard slog to Phelps-like technical perfection... knowing I'd never get there!

This is why skilled and dedicated coaches are so important. Look at the difference someone like Bill Sweetenham made when he joined British Swimming a few years ago. By all accounts he may not have been universally popular, but something fundamentally changed when he arrived and you see the successful swimmers who started when he was in charge coming through now.

The environment is tough (hot pool side with no natural light), the hours are awful (5.30am start - 7pm finish, plus weekends) and the pay isn't great - so it takes a special kind of crazy person to be a coach.

But as London 2012 draws closer I hope GBswimstars helps all our club coaches get the recognition they truly deserve.

Posted: July 2009