Sat, Sep 14, 2024 6:30 AM
Swimmer setting sights on breaking magical barrier
Brooke Swan cleaned up at the NZ Short Course Swimming Championships with the help of coach Glen Findlay, pictured right with Brooke. Photo: Stephen Stuart.
Stephen Stuart
Not even three successive bouts of the flu could stop Nelson’s top butterfly exponent Brooke Swan cleaning up at the New Zealand Short Course Swimming Championships on Auckland’s North Shore last month.
It just underlined the Rai Valley-raised swimmer’s mental and physical strengths.
The recurring illness had forced the Year 13 Nayland College student out of the pool for a week in the lead up to the nationals, but she still went there with high hopes.
“I really wanted to break the sub one minute mark in the 100 metres butterfly,” says Brooke, who won the Under 17 and U18 finals and then finished third in the senior division.
“Brooke had been really crook so I had no expectations but she is such a tough competitor,” says her Nelson South mentor Glen Findlay. While just outside her time goals, the 17-year-old’s efforts have won her selection in the New Zealand team for a tri-series against Australia’s top state swimmers at a meet in Hamilton in October.
The team will be coached by Findlay who first spotted Brooke’s potential when she was nine.
“I started swimming competitively when I was six and I just thought butterfly was really cool,” says Brooke, who wanted to follow her older brother Alec who went on to represent New Zealand as an endurance swimmer.
After competing for the Tasman Club, she switched to Nelson South and linked with Glen nine months ago.
“There are plenty of talented swimmers around but it is very difficult to find someone who can back it up consistently. Brooke is mentally and physically tough. She’s a very strategic swimmer. She doesn’t just burst out of the blocks and go like a cut cat,” enthused Glen.
He also describes her as a “vicious” trainer, a reference to her workload, 22 hours a week with some of that spent lifting heavy weights in the gym.
That’s meant very early starts to travel in from Rai Valley, about a 40 minute drive to the Riverside Pool in Nelson or even longer to the Richmond Aquatic Centre.
“To break that up, I spend every second night with a mate in Stoke,” says Brooke.
In Hamilton, she will compete in her specialist 100 metres fly plus the 200m and maybe other events which have yet to be decided.
It will be Glen’s 10th international coaching role after moving from Christchurch to Nelson 10 years ago.
He rates his latest star as already in the top five for female butterfly in the country behind Olympian Helen Ouwehand who was just outside the 58 second mark at the Paris games.
“She’s looking to shake up the national rankings,” warns Glen.
Once the short court season winds up, Brooke is planning on a gap year in 2025. Rather than go down the American college scholarship path, she’s happy to remain in the Nelson region. In fact, she’ll be working as an instrutor for her coach at his busy Hampden Street Swim School. So Brooke Swan will probably be spending even more time in the pool.
It just underlined the Rai Valley-raised swimmer’s mental and physical strengths.
The recurring illness had forced the Year 13 Nayland College student out of the pool for a week in the lead up to the nationals, but she still went there with high hopes.
“I really wanted to break the sub one minute mark in the 100 metres butterfly,” says Brooke, who won the Under 17 and U18 finals and then finished third in the senior division.
“Brooke had been really crook so I had no expectations but she is such a tough competitor,” says her Nelson South mentor Glen Findlay. While just outside her time goals, the 17-year-old’s efforts have won her selection in the New Zealand team for a tri-series against Australia’s top state swimmers at a meet in Hamilton in October.
The team will be coached by Findlay who first spotted Brooke’s potential when she was nine.
“I started swimming competitively when I was six and I just thought butterfly was really cool,” says Brooke, who wanted to follow her older brother Alec who went on to represent New Zealand as an endurance swimmer.
After competing for the Tasman Club, she switched to Nelson South and linked with Glen nine months ago.
“There are plenty of talented swimmers around but it is very difficult to find someone who can back it up consistently. Brooke is mentally and physically tough. She’s a very strategic swimmer. She doesn’t just burst out of the blocks and go like a cut cat,” enthused Glen.
He also describes her as a “vicious” trainer, a reference to her workload, 22 hours a week with some of that spent lifting heavy weights in the gym.
That’s meant very early starts to travel in from Rai Valley, about a 40 minute drive to the Riverside Pool in Nelson or even longer to the Richmond Aquatic Centre.
“To break that up, I spend every second night with a mate in Stoke,” says Brooke.
In Hamilton, she will compete in her specialist 100 metres fly plus the 200m and maybe other events which have yet to be decided.
It will be Glen’s 10th international coaching role after moving from Christchurch to Nelson 10 years ago.
He rates his latest star as already in the top five for female butterfly in the country behind Olympian Helen Ouwehand who was just outside the 58 second mark at the Paris games.
“She’s looking to shake up the national rankings,” warns Glen.
Once the short court season winds up, Brooke is planning on a gap year in 2025. Rather than go down the American college scholarship path, she’s happy to remain in the Nelson region. In fact, she’ll be working as an instrutor for her coach at his busy Hampden Street Swim School. So Brooke Swan will probably be spending even more time in the pool.
