New Plan For Swimming

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31360, 4 May 1967, Page 15

New Plan For Swimming

An enterprising scheme aimed at boosting the Dominion’s swimming standards by ensuring uniform competition at centre and national level every summer has been adopted by the council of the New Zealand Amateur Swimming Association.

Based on age group swimming, the scheme was evolved by the select committee on the development plan after hearing an address by Mr L. W. R. Hurring, an Auck--1 a n d professional coach and former national champion and record-holder. The plan calls for the for-

mation of age groups in twoyear levels, with an open group but no group under 10 years. A standard programme of competition will be devised, with races held fortnightly in every centre. The chairman of the council (Mr A. J. Donaldson) said the scheme will provide continuous age group swimming throughout the season, with two peak periods, probably in December and March. It is envisaged that the first phase of competition will culminate with the national teleprinter contest finals before Christmas. Later in the season there will be some other form of national final, although national age group championships will probably not be introduced for a season or two. Most of the country’s 16 swimming centres already have some form of age group competition in operation; the select committee’s scheme will standardise the programme and point the way to spectacular development in competitive swimming. The committee recommended to the council that age group swimming should be encouraged in schools, particularly through inter-school competition. The shortage of facilities, however, could retard this phase of the scheme in the initial years of the age group plan.