Simcic proof success can be bred at home

Press, 17 May 1989, Page 32

Simcic proof success can be bred at home

By

KEVIN TUTTY

There has been a tendency in New Zealand swimming for many years for the sport’s leading competitors to dash off at the first hint of a scholarship offer from a United States university. Swimmers swarm to the States because they believe, often mistakenly, that the hectic atmosphere of American college meetings will drag them to startling times they could not hope to achieve in the competition starved New Zealand scene.

Anna Simcic has proved though that New Zealanders can obtain top world rankings without the supercharged competition of the United States.

Her outstanding advances in the last year have been based on a demanding training schedule drawn up by her coach, Brett Naylor, and rigidly maintained by Simcic in the 25m Aquagym pool in Cashel Street.

When Simcic burst into the world top 20 rankings for 100 and 200 m backstroke in March, offers from American universities could have been expected to trickle in. Perhaps the news of her feats have not reached the States yet, but if any offers are forthcoming Simcic will consider them carefully before making an acceptance.

She is fortunate that she has a coach who has been through the American system and knows its pitfalls and pressures. Mr Naylor believes Simcic could do well in America because she is dedicated and well organised, but he also knows that there is no substitute for a home’ environment. It will be in these stable surroundings that the 17-year-oid Linwood High School pupil prepares this year for the two most important competitions in her short, but highly successful career. Simcic makes a mockery of the “international experience” catchcry that so many coaches echo. She has become the second ranked 200 m backstroke swimmer in the Commonwealth and her international experience consists of several trips across the Tasman to Australian national and state championships. Her initiation to truly international competition will come in August at the Pan Pacific Games in Tokyo. Teams from the host nation, Australia, Canada and the United States will attend.

That will be her only taste of the big time before the Commonwealth Games in Auckland next year, and said Mr Naylor, will be important to Simcic’s continuing maturity

at the highest competitive levels. Simcic grabbed the headlines with her brilliant times at the New Zealand championships at the Henderson pool in March — the pool that will host the Commonwealth Games. She returned home from those championships with six individual titles, five national records and a share of three national relay records as a member of Canterbury teams. The extent of her success entranced the media who knew little of the young Christchurch woman. But. the signs were there that Simcic was destined for national prominence. Last year she had come within a second of qualifying for the Seoul Olympics. Rather than spend further time chasing the qualifying time in the hope of making a last minute entry into the Games team, Mr Naylor and Simcic decided to cut

their losses and concentrate instead on a build-up for the summer season. “I was disappointed that I didn’t qualify for Seoul, but not shattered. It was a load off my shoulders and

allowed me to concentrate on my training and the meetings ahead.” In retrospect the decision to place an emphasis on a winter build up was the right one. Simcic broke the national -200 m backstroke record with a time of 2min 13.82 s at the New Zealand championships — a time that would have gained her sixth place at the Seoul Olympics. Simcic is in only her fifth season of serious swimming. She learned to swim at the age of “six or seven” with the North Beach based coach, Don Dalton. Her racing for the next few years consisted of a weekly carnival at the Sumner club. At the age of 13 she joined the Avon Aquatics club and started training three times a week. Within a year she had advanced to the club’s senior squad and a heavier training schedule. Over the next few months Simcic’s weekly

training distance will average between 70 and 80km and could be as high as 90km.

Simcic is amused now when she recalls how she thought swimming an 800 m warm-up was a daunting prospect when she joined Avon’s senior squad four years ago. In the 25m Aquagym pool a 70km a week training schedule amounts to 2800 lengths. In spite of slogging up and down the same lane for hours on end Simcic does not find her training boring. “Brett tries to vary it as much as possible to keep it interesting and we have a good team spirit in the squad which helps. In a 25m pool there are plenty of turns, and you have to keep your concentration for those.” Simcic said she found the 50m Queen Elizabeth II pool more boring to train in. Backstroke will be Simcic’s main consideration for the Commonwealth Games, although she has performed excellent times in butterfly events in the last year, including break-. ing the national record in the 100 m butterfly, a record that was set in 1978 when Penny McCarthy won the silver medal at the Edmonton Commonwealth Games. She will swim the 100 m butterfly in Auckland, but will be unable to swim in the 200 m butterfly because it is in the same session as the 200 m backstroke, her main event. At the head of the Commonwealth . 200 m backstroke rankings .is an Australian, Nicole Livingstone. Simcic has met her several times on her sojourns to Australia and has never been able to beat her. She will probably meet her again at the Pan Pacific championships in Tokyo and hopes to edge

a little closer to the Australian.

A year ago the gap was two seconds. Now it is down to less than half a second and Simcic hopes to narrow it further in Tokyo so that when the Commonwealth Games arrive she will be on level terms with her main rival.

A highly trained athlete must closely monitor his or her health, and Simcic is no exception. Glandular fever is a common illness among swimmers and Simcic and Mr Naylor were concerned last year to find she had a low iron count.

That is closely watched now, but tests for health and fitness are costs which have to be met in a true amateur sport such as swimming.

Simcic estimates that this year her costs leading up to the Commonwealth Games will be $5OOO.

In spite of her outstanding international rankings — twelfth in the 200 m backstroke and sixteenth in the 100 m backstroke — Simcic has not received a grant from the New Zealand Sports Foundation. The prospect of any money being granted to Simcic also looks slim after recent announcements that funding for Commonwealth Games sports has been cut.

Rather than sit back and- wait for grahts, Mr Naylor has endeavoured to obtain funding for Simcic through sponsorship. He has compiled a dossier and delivered it to several companies. He has had no takers yet.

Simcic is one of a number of outstanding New Zealand sportsmen and sportswomen who have to pay thousands of dollars for the chance to win a Commonwealth or Olympic medal, but if they are lucky enough to grasp one the effort they have invested in it and the support they have received from family friends and team-mates, makes the moment so much more poignant.