SWIMMING: Winter's leaving dirty nappies behind for dream trip

ANENDRA SINGH
Anybody can be a father but it takes something special to be a dad.
Not that he needs to prove anything to anyone, but Primo Sundevils swim coach Jonathan Winter has forgone three coaching stints since July to savour the joys of fatherhood since the new arrival in the family after wife Rebekah gave birth to their second child, baby boy Jacob Rawiri Charles.
Four months on, the former New Zealand representative and Commonwealth medallist has packed his bags to jet off tomorrow to broaden his horizon in the United States and the United Kingdom.
"I've spent the important first few months of my boy's life but now I'm itching to go overseas and learn some new tricks. I'm going to miss my family but I'll have the time of my life," Winter told SportToday as he braced himself for a busy schedule, which is part of his Sparc $10,000 Prime Minister's Scholarship he won earlier this year.
He will work with high performance squads and coaches at the University of Bath in England and observe the elite high performance and science centre at the University of Loughborough.
"The English are very crafty because they have been secretly pumping huge amounts of money into swimming so they'll be interesting," said Winter, who returns home on November 17.
In the US, the 34-year-old Olympian is excited about going to Columbus, Ohio, where Hawke's Bay swimmer Blair Withington has been competing for Kenyon College since July.
"I will watch Blair swim against his team's biggest rivals, the Ohio State Buckeyes," said Winter, who secured a spot for the Sundevils after talking to Kenyon College coach Jim Steen.
His other visits include observing the UCLA women's swimming programme in Los Angeles, the Columbia Swim Team in New York and the Harvard University Team in Boston.
The icing on the cake for Winter is a last-minute invite to a Harlem facility in New York "for a night on the deck" in an underprivileged area.
"I'm going with an open mind and hope to learn something from an area where facilities may be substandard but coaches and volunteers may be doing things differently technically and even culturally," said Winter, before tucking a dictaphone and digital camera into his handbag.