Swimming: Danyon Loader, 'an inspiration to the young'

DUNEDIN - For Peter Loader, the highlight of son Danyon's swimming career was not double Olympic golds, Commonwealth Games selections, welcome-home parades or Halberg sports awards.

It was the way he inspired young New Zealanders.

"I can't just pick one thing, there have been so many highlights. But when kids write to him and they put so much work into what they send him ... that's a buzz," Peter Loader said yesterday.

Danyon, aged 25, on Tuesday night announced his retirement from competitive swimming.

His mother, Daphne, said she would always remember his silver medal performance at Barcelona in 1992.

"I can still hear Keith Quinn yelling 'Here comes the 17-year-old all the way from little old Dunedin.' It was quite a thrill."

She said the first hint of Danyon's talent came when his club asked if he could swim in a competition "just a couple of weeks after he first started as a 10-year-old."

"We didn't know anything about swimming. I went home and said to Peter, 'What are they talking about?"'

Peter Loader said he could not be sure when the family realised the true extent of Danyon's ability.

"You don't think like that, do you? Like all parents, I think all my kids are world-beaters, but I guess I'm biased."

A world-beater is how the youngest Loader in the family of four children turned out.

And although his focus may have drifted in recent years, Loader's coach, Duncan Laing, said he was in awe of the swimmer at his peak.

"He just fell into place. He was a great trainer, he never missed a session. He was just a great champion. I've got nothing but admiration for him," Laing said.

"He looked like a great thoroughbred in full flight."

He could see the fire had gone from his swimming star and the decision to retire was not unexpected.

He was adamant, though, that Loader could have emulated his previous success in Sydney with the correct preparation.

Failure to qualify for the Olympics in Sydney sealed Loader's decision to retire.

"It wasn't really a difficult decision to make, it's been a couple of years in the making," he said yesterday.

"Not qualifying for the Olympics was a wake-up call and in many ways it was a relief to finally reach a decision.

"But after 13 years I found it wasn't that easy to let go of the lifestyle. I knew I could still get up early each day to do the training and I had been doing that for the past six months.

"I wasn't strong enough to let go of 13 years of my lifestyle easily. It needed something else [failure to qualify] to make the decision possible," he said. "It will leave a big hole in my life, and at the moment I'm in no hurry to find something else to fill it."

Apart from saying he would continue living in Christchurch, Loader gave no hint of his plans.

- NZPA