Swimming: Keeping NZ team local 'key to success'

1.00pm

Former national swimming coach Mark Bone believes keeping our latest Olympians in their regions is key to New Zealand's future in the sport.

Auckland-based Bone has been in Rotorua this month working with promising Bay of Plenty swimmers and coaches.

Bone said it was crucial for New Zealand's developing swimmers to be able to see the best in action and training and that's why he's a firm believer in the regional swimming academy approach, such as the one Clive Powers has set up in Tauranga.

"I believe we need these high performance centres around the country, we definitely need one here in the Bay with the likes of Moss Burmester, and Liz Van Welie up here now.

"Obviously we've got the Millennium Institute at North Shore, but we need one on the other side of the bridge in Auckland because it's so big, then in the likes of Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin," he said.

"It keeps them (the swimmers) in their home environments and allows the young kids to watch them ... You know if Moss had to leave the Bay, these kids lose their identity with him, he gives them the incentive to keep going."

That incentive to keep going in a sport which requires huge discipline and sacrifice also needs to be looked at if New Zealand swimming is to make any inroads from Athens, Bone says.

"That's the important thing -- this core of swimmers that went to the Olympics, if we can continue to develop them and take them to the next Commonwealth Games then we're in good shape for Beijing.

"If we lose any of them, if Hannah Mclean or Dean Kent decide to retire, then we're struggling because it's the maturity in depth we need to bring the whole level up."

Bone believes there are some real positives which need to be built on after Athens.

He describes both Corney Swanepoel, Hannah McLean and Burmester as world class while Kent really "stepped up" with two New Zealand records.

Swanepoel was only 17 and just needs time while McLean is "right up there" in the world of women's backstroke, Bone said.

- DAILY POST (ROTORUA)