Olympian opens 'fun' swim school

She's swum at the Olympics and been coached by the legendary Duncan Laing, but it's at the other end of the spectrum Tauranga's Liz Van Welie has switched her attention, as she tells sports editor Kelly Exelby.

As an 8-year-old swimming in her family's backyard pool to escape central Otago's searing summer heat, Liz Van Welie dared to dream.
She reached for the stars, going on to compete at the Olympic Games in Sydney in 2000, finishing 15th in the 200m butterfly, and winning a 400m individual medley silver medal at the Manchester Commonwealth Games two years later.
Now the 31-year-old has a different dream, one that's less about medals and endless hours chasing the black line at the bottom of the pool and more about helping kids stay alive in the water.
Van Welie, who called time on her long pool career five years ago, has quit her job as an injury prevention consultant with ACC Tauranga to open her own learn-to-swim school.
Working out of the former Froggies premises in Judea, the ex-Olympian's new business dream has been bubbling for 12 months, stoked by a decline in competitive swimming numbers and discernible lack of competency in the water, due mainly, she said, to schools removing swimming lessons from the curriculum and teachers not being taught at teachers' college how to teach students to swim.
"When I was involved with the swim squad in Tauranga it obviously wasn't growing and the next level wasn't feeding through, which follows the general trend of a drop-off in competitive swimming numbers.
"Part of the reason is that the fun has been taken out of swimming, so we've developed a programme that is fun, providing swimmers with a life skill. Where they go with that is up to them - there's the opportunity to take up the many water sports in the region - but at the very least they'll leave with competence and confidence when they get in the water."
Van Welie has spent the past 12 months training a group of triathletes, growing the squad from four to 22 just through word of mouth. Her new venture is aimed squarely at the opposite end of the market.
Starting with 6-month-olds, where the emphasis is on water confidence, Van Welie is utilising Christchurch programme Moving Smart, which has been researched and developed by her business mentor Jill Connell for Sparc's active movement programme.
"I'll put my own flavour to on it to Swimming NZ standards, but we want to turn out kids who, from 6 months, develop confidence and learn to love the water, and from there can learn how to be safe and can comfortably roll on to their backs and float if the opportunity ever arose.
"Competency swimming is the end result, however long that takes."
Van Welie already has infants through to 12-year-olds enrolled in her school holiday programme, which starts in early January, and hopes eventually to open her swim school six days a week if demand warrants. Classes will be 30 minutes and limited to four a session.
There aren't many swim schools with an Olympian at the helm, but Van Welie is more excited about the cutting edge technology they've brought in to their leased facility.
Van Welie Swim School is the first commercial provider of MagnaPool, which uses magnesium and potassium as the base minerals to treat the water, instead of chlorine.
Van Welie's husband, Greg Cummings, said they did a year's worth of research and were sold on the system, which produces odourless, crystal-clear pool water that is filtered through a diamond clean (glass particles) process instead of a filtration sock or sand.
"So many ex learn-to-swim teachers we've talked to won't teach any more because of chlorine rash, yet anecdotal research has even shown this to be good for children with eczema, which is really cool," Van Welie said.
If plans to expand in a year or two come to fruition they can pack up the MagnaPool system and take it with them.
Van Welie has a simple riposte for those who question the cost of learn-to-swim classes - how can you afford not to?
"Greg and I have pulled a couple of people out of the surf at remote beaches who would have drowned if we weren't there [and] it's easy to report the drowning statistics, yet so many near misses go unreported.
"On any given weekend you can go to the Mount, sit on the beach and watch the risks people put their kids at, simply because they can't swim and, in turn, their kids have never learned.
"There's plenty of competing activities out there but the simple truth is learning how to play the piano isn't going to save a kid's life."