Two Canadian Paralympic coaches visited Swindon’s Health Hydro to study a swimming team from thje town.
Swindon Amateur Swimming Club - the third oldest club in the country - has been held up as a beaming example of helping integrate its para swimmers alongside its regular swimming group.
The work at the town's historic baths over the last two years attracted the attention of Swimming Canada, which sent two of its Paralympic coaches over to view the progress and aim to replicate the model.
“We came over to learn more about the para swimming programme so that we can take that information home and see how we can implement something similar,” said Darda Sales.
“They are having success with bringing more swimmers into the pathway so we wanted to learn as much of that as possible to bring back to Canada.”
Darda is a former swimmer who won a gold medal at the 2000 Sydney Paralympic Games before switching sports to wheelchair basketball in 2009.
She is now a para swimming development consultant working with Swim Ontario, which is a provincial organisation of Swimming Canada.
“I absolutely love coaching and being able to give back, seeing athletes better themselves both professionally but also as people,” she revealed.
“Swimming gave me so much, whether that be the level of self-confidence that I have or the friends that I have made, so I am passionate about trying to bring more athletes into this amazing sport.”
Fellow visitor Janet Dunn is the pathway development coach at Swimming Canada, having coached at several international tournaments including the London 2012 Paralympic Games, and was left positively surprised by Swindon.
“I’m pretty impressed with the number of start para swimmers there are in Swindon,” she said.
“It’s quite a nice little town with a lot of history and there appears to be a lot of involvement and passion at SASC.”
Also in attendance was Swim England’s Martin Lees, who is the para swimming development manager for the organisation.
“This is my first visit here so I am really excited see the work that SASC and see the work that they have been doing,” he said.
“It is great to see so many young kids here with a smile on their face and having a commitment to swimming at such an early stage of their journey.”
“I have spoken to many of them and they want to progress and so hopefully here in Swindon we can give them the right environment for them to go on and be classified in the next few years and start to compete as para swimmers.”
Team GB’s Suzanna Hext, who competed at the Tokyo 2022 Paralympics, was also in attendance.
SASC lead coordinator Paula Rutherford has been a para swimmer trainer for years, working with Susie and helping several athletes move to elite level in that time.
“It is really exciting to have our visitors over today and to be chosen from the clubs that have a para swimming squad and our swimmers have really enjoyed the talk,” she said.
“We are a good practice model here of how we can have a pathway from the beginning through to classifying as we have swimmers who will make national times.”
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here