Nancy Ovens Bursary: the truth about Australian Swimming
Posted to Careers at 4:05 pm on August 22nd, 2009 by Rachel LightI’ve been in Australia for about 10 days now and my trip is awesome! To say I am learning a lot is an understatement. All the Australian’s have been so accommodating to me and have looked after me as well as sharing information on their success of swimming.
I first arrived in Canberra on Friday 14th August and my journey over seemed to never end. From Bournemouth – Gatwick – Dubai – Singapore – Brisbane, then waited for six hours at the airport for my next flight on Qantas. I flew then to Canberra and straight to bed when I go to my B & B. The weekend was rest and recovery and Sunday night I met up with the boys from Parkeon, one of my sponsors, who took me out for a meal in the City. Canberra is a strange city, it is so incredibly beautiful, but yet so small. There are a little over 350,000 people living in the city, although I have no idea where they were, as it always seemed so quiet. Walking round the city I wondered how all the businesses could be sustained with sales and paying out rent, rates, stock etc.
On Monday my first meeting was with the Australian Institute of Sport. It was a little out of the city in an area where there was plenty of land. The place itself is huge, offering tours round the facility with athletes for the tourists that come and visit. Athletes can live on site for short or long stay, they can also study at university and use the facilities whenever they like. However in order to receive this kind of treatment they have to be on the Australian World Class Program. Dave Pease met me and kindly showed me around the Aquatic Research & Testing Unit, a place where they have developed all their own technology and use it to analyse the swimmers. It truly was sensational and I can see how and why their swimmers are at the forefront of the sport – for the time being anyway.
I had the opportunity to chat with Dave and he answered many questions and concerns for me about swimming in the UK, however I must add with Michael Scott on board at British Swimming, I really think we are going to see massive developments to elite swimming in the UK. This is something the Aussies are concerned about as many people who work at the AIS tend to jump ship and come and work in the UK. After I had finished with Dave he took me to meet Greg Shaw, a senior athlete nutritionist. Greg spent time with me showing me the structure and support in place for educating swimmers at youth level in nutrition and explained exactly how they do it. He also told me about a scheme they have running for school children too, something I was fascinated with.
After Greg I also met with Julian Jones Head of Strength & Conditioning for the AIS. This was a very interesting meet for me seeing as one of my main focuses is strength & conditioning. I showed him an example of a brochure I had given to me, by someone high up in a swimming related company, of exercises to help improve core stability. When I was given it I laughed and thought it was very poor considering it came from a high level company. When I showed it to Julian he laughed too and told me that we should keep this document in place for the kids, because it means to them we will never beat them at swimming. Something I found very amusing. However, it has now inspired me and also given me the confidence to approach them about doing something much better. Since coming away from the AIS I have been completely inspired and now have a number of ideas that I am going to implement when I get back to the UK.
The following day I headed out to Swimming Australia where I met with Tim Arnold. He spent a great deal of time with me explaining about how the sporting structure works in Australia and where swimming fits in to everything. He was extremely helpful and again demonstrated a fantastic support network for swimming right from grass roots level through to elite. This to me was valuable information, as before I came to Australia I believed they had a fantastic support infrastructure in place and this was confirmed.
The Wednesday was my last day in Canberra and my flight to Brisbane was leaving at 11am. This was just enough time to swing on by ABC Canberra Radio Station for my LIVE interview with Alex Sloan. This was a follow up interview, as I had already chatted with Alex before, although I have to say I wasn’t expecting to go out live on the radio. However I managed it and coped with it just fine. On my way to the airport I heard Alex read out some of the text messages that had come in after my interview, which was great to hear as it seems people are interested in what I am up to.
The weather was warm and sunny in Brisbane, 26 degrees to be exact, which is great seeing as this is their Winter. I picked up a hire car from the airport and then Thursday I headed down the coast to visit Surf Australia, which is tucked away in a fantastic beach resort. I guess I was expecting to see fantastic things when I got to Surf Australia. They had told me about their High Performance Centre and after seeing fantastic facilities at the AIS I was expecting a little too much. Their facilities is just a 25m swimming pool and a large gymnasium that’s open to residents, as well as elite surfers.
Having said that, I shouldn’t put them down, because what I found out about them is that they too have a fantastic structure and network in place for surfers from learn to surf through to World Class Athletes, and what they do is incredible, seeing as they get very little funding. Because surfing is not an Olympic sport their funding is massively reduced and they still manage to produce the some of the best surfers in the world. I picked up what I needed from here and will pass back to the British Surfing Association.
On Friday was another meeting, however this time with the Queensland Academy of Sport. Well what can I say truly lovely people and again amazing facilities. I was shown around their centre and their rehabilitation unit, which again is second to none. They have some of the world’s finest athletes who come through their centre and what they do for these athletes is inspirational. They help them get back on their feet either after injury or if they need to find work or study. The QAS work closely with the athletes and are always there for them. Something I felt was commendable.
Whilst there I met a young male long jumper who will be at the next Commonwealth Games and also a female High Jumper who should be at the London 2012 Olympics. I was introduced to a great guy who is Head of Strength & Conditioning for the Queensland Swimming Team and I learnt so much from him. He is a Doctor in his profession and was able to answer my questions of concern about some of my young athletes. Again a truly inspirational character and a thoroughly nice guy! Lawrie Fabian showed me around the facilities and passed me a contact for a head coach in the UK, as he felt he would benefit from using the Young Athletes Training Academy, it just so happens this head coach is based at Poole Swim Club. Right on my doorstep! Can you believe it I travel 12,000 miles across the globe and am given a contact in my own town? How fantastic is that? Lawrie should be coming to the UK next year on his own research mission. Lawrie was telling me that for years all the other countries have admired the Australians success at sport and have often come over and taken back new ideas to implement in their own country. Apparently the Australians feel they are being left behind, so are running their own research projects now!
The weather this weekend has been scorching hot and I have taken some time out to catch up on work and on my tan 
In Queensland they are having a heat wave and tomorrow (Monday) will be the hottest day on record so far. Tomorrow is a new day and I have a last minute appointment with Swimming Queensland and also a meeting with the editor for the Brisbane Times. Stay tuned for more info…
