Bonus arrives with new swim coach

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 34012, 28 November 1975, Page 24

Bonus arrives with new swim coach

(By

KEVIN TUTTY)

Bruce Windeatt, who arrived in Christchurch yesterday to take Pic Parkhouse’s coaching position at the Wharenui swimming pool, brought with him an unexpected bonus for Canterbury and the Wharenui club.

The bonus was his brother Graham, a Commonwealth Games gold medallist and Olympic Games silver medallist, who will train with Bruce at Wharenui in preparation for the Montreal Olympics next year.

Three weeks ago Graham went to Thunder Bay in Canada to train with Don Talbot who coached him in Australia several years ago. However, at the week-end he decided he would come to New Zealand with Bruce. Asked why, he said that next year would be his last in competitive swimming and he had decided that in this

last year he would like to be coached by his brother. He has faith in his brother’s ability to prepare him for the Olympics, “I have been in swimming for 15 years, and I know a good coach when I see one,” Graham said.

“We may not see eye to eye on everything,’ said Bruce, “but I’m sure we will work things eout.” Aust, trials Graham won his gold medal in the 1500 m at the Edinburgh Commonwealth Games and a silver medal in the same event at the Munich Olympics. He was fourth in the 400 m freestyle at the world championships in Cali, Columbia, last July. The addition of Graham Windeatt to the Wharenui squad, which his brother Bruce will take over on Monday, will be a boost for the Canterbury and New Zea-

land distance freestyler, Mark Treffers.

Graham will stay in Christchurch until the Australian selection trials in February, and then probably return and compete in the New Zealand championships at Dunedin in March.

He is keen to get as much competition as possible before he returns to Australia, but fortnightly carnivals and I the Canterbury championI ships in mid-January are the only meetings set down. Bruce Windeatt has been swimming and coaching in the United States and Canada since 1969. He competed for four years before graduating from the University of Southern Illinois with a B.Sc. in physical education. Head coach

After graduating he took a job as head coach of a club in Calgary, Canada, but returned last year to Rochford, Illinois, where he was responsible for a squad of 80 swimmers.

In August this year, he was in Australia looking for a coaching job, and it was then that he was contacted by the president of the Wharenui club (Mr D. W. Cain). Bruce was here once before, in 1969 with a New South Wales B team. He swam at the Wharenui pool. In the United States and Canada he was involved only in coaching, and it was a desire to become involved in teach-to-swim that prompted him to look elsewhere. “It becomes boring if you are coaching in the mornings and evenings with nothing to do in between.”

Bruce confessed to liking the technical approach to swimming, and he said he would take data from the swimmers and work out their training from that. “I like to sit down and find out the training that suits a swimmer. It means more work, but I like it, and it is better than guesswork and the swim-

mer can learn what he or she is capable of too.” Although he has had larger squads than he will have at Wharenui, he has not had a squad with such good swimmers, but he is looking forward to the challenge of coaching at Wharenui. Bruce expressed some doubts as to whether he had made the right decision in coming to New Zealand. He has a wife and 11-month-old daughter who have stayed behind in Illinois, and will arrive here after Christmas. He has had to sell his house and car in Rochford and will have to start from scratch again in Christchurch.

Like him, his wife has a B.Sc. in physical education, “As you can imagine, that causes a few discussions.” he said. When they first met, she had no interest in swimming, but she had an interest m W, said Bruce, and she might start some teaching in the future.