Bay swim academy set to fly

Bay of Plenty swimmers now have the means to become the best in the world, as JAMIE TROUGHTON reports.

After 'the longest seven months' of Clive Power's life, his dream has finally been realised.

The master swim coach will take charge of New Zealand's first swimming academy after Swimming New Zealand today confirmed funding for a Performance Centre based in Tauranga.

The centre will initially host six of Bay of Plenty's best swimmers, with scope to bring in promising talent from throughout the province.

Liz van Welie, Kendall Cochrane, Justin Hamilton, Penelope Marshall, Emma Banks and surf lifesaving star Johanna O'Connor make up the initial intake, although Power has already been training them together as a squad for the past two months.

The centre is the result of a partnership between Swimming New Zealand, Swimming Bay of Plenty, Sport Bay of Plenty and pool managers H20 Management.

It will be based at the Greerton Aquatic Centre until the new swimming pool is completed at Mt Maunganui's Grenada Park.

National coach Clive Rushton has devised a series of requirements for the programme, including the international ranking of the squad, access and quality of the facilities, and the coach-swimmer environment, and believes Tauranga's set-up will rival anything in place around the world.

"The result should be a much more focused coach, swimmers able to perform in better facilities and environment with individualised tailored programmes," Rushton said.

Power will be directly funded by Swimming New Zealand to carry on his work, which Rushton believes has been outstanding. "It is one of the most consistent high performing programmes, it is well-structured and is totally uncompromising. We just want him to carry on what he's been doing. The type of programme Clive runs is very hard, very tough and has tougher quality control than any other programme in the country."

Power guided Moss Burmester to the Olympic Games this year but quit just before Athens to pour his energies into this project.

After nine years coaching Tauranga's best swimmers, he realised they needed another level of programme to help them compete internationally.

He has already been casting his eye around the region for other promising swimmers.

"Bay-wide we do have some very good swimmers coming through," Power said. "There are definitely swimmers out there who are very talented and who are just about ready to take the next step.

"The idea is that from time to time I'll bring them in and work on specific things with them, with them part of the group, so that all the time they'll be seeing a definite pathway. And that goes for coaches as well - I'll be working with them to try to lift the whole focus and standard of swimming in the Bay."

Swimming New Zealand hopes to expand the programme, starting with a High Performance Centre based at Auckland's Millennium Centre, after high performance investment package was announced last week by SPARC.

Rushton believes that Christchurch and Wellington are strong candidates for further "performance centres", along with Dunedin and Auckland.

Swimming New Zealand chief executive Paul Veric believes the programme is innovative and exciting and offers a further opportunity to develop the high performance end of the sport.