Life is tough at the top for 15-year-old champion

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32077, 27 August 1969, Page 11

Life is tough at the top for 15-year-old champion

TIFE for 15-year-old ■*“* Graham Windeatt, the world's best swimmer for his age and the present Australian 400 metres champion, has been a rigorous routine of swimming and sleeping for the last six years. Since he began competitive swimming at the age of nine, he has been training at least 25 miles a week for 49 weeks of the year in an

effort to reach the top. He has had little time for any- * thing else. Last week he began his third tour of New Zealand with the New South Wales team and with his effortless, relaxed Australian -crawl, swept aside the top freestylers in his own team and soundly beat the best New Zealand could offer. But his way to the top has not been comfortable. He

learned to swim at three, listening to Don Talbot, a prominent Australian coach, instructing his older brother, Bruce. However, when Talbot introduced him to the hard training sessions he bucked and had to be chased into the pool. "He hated it so much that when a starter said go he would run out the door of the swimming baths while the other competitors took

off down the pool,” his father, Mr W. Windeatt, who is manager of the N.S.W. team, recalled. He has, nevertheless, accepted the hard work now. His day begins at 5.30 a.m. and he trains from 6 a.m. to 7.30 a.m. in a heated indoor pool 12 miles from his home in Revesby,' a suburb of Sydney. He has, no time to eat a meal when : he comes in from training in the morning so he eats a large steak sandwich in the car on the way, grabs his books and heads off to school. The evening training begins at 9 pan., after he has had time to finish his homework, and it lasts an hour and a half.

“Sometimes I have felt sick of the training,” he said, “although it is worthwhile. I do nothing else apart from swimming and schoolwork and when I have that three-week break from training after the summer season I just sleep.” But there will be no break between now and the

Commonwealth Games at Edinburgh. He has set his heart on representing Australia in at least the 1500 metres freestyle and also hopes to compete in the 400 metres freestyle and one of the relay teams. The Australian team will be chosen at the national championships at the end of February next year and he will have to continue at a harder pace until the Commonwealth Games in November.

His best 1500 metres freestyle time is 18min 34sec, which is only 30sec outside the present world record. His aim after finishing school in three years is to take a swimming scholarship in the United States and follow the path of his 20-year-old brother, Bruce, who left on a four-year scholarship to the University of Southern Illinois six months ago. , A scholarship to the United States would mean even harder work for Graham, Bruce has had to adapt ..himself to a training programme that demands 45 miles swimming each week. “He was so tired at the end of his'first week of training that he could hardly muster the energy to crawl home and have a shower,” Mr Windeatt said. . If Graham Windeatt has

the drive to keep going he will undoubtedly reach the top, according to Talbot. He considers him better than Bob Windle, an Australian Olympic champion, whose style Graham has Imitated. Graham has received every help from his parents. They haVe moulded their lives around the swimming routine of both boys. They attend every training session and have both accompanied Graham on his three tours to New Zealand. Mr Windeatt is a prominent member of the New South Wales swimming executive.