Swimming association dives into new era with pool

For more than 80 years, the Bermuda Amateur Swimming Association has taught people how to swim and trained athletes to international standards.

Tomorrow, club members will hold a swimathon to raise funds for the charity, from 6am to 6pm.

The event also marks the official opening of BASA’s resurfaced pool at the Saltus Grammar School campus.

The project took two-and-a-half months to complete and will provide young athletes and members of the public with a first-class training facility.

BASA’s mission statement is: “To inspire and enable the entire Bermuda community to have access to and achieve excellence in aquatics and in life.”

“We play a role in all aspects of swimming, from learning how to swim to competitive Olympic swimming,” said Tim Petty, BASA president.

“In Bermuda we are surrounded by water so it’s important to teach as many people to learn how to swim as possible, not just for safety but also for health reasons.

“We also aim to help facilitate them to achieve excellence in the sport.”

BASA was founded in the 1930’s as a FINA (International Swimming Federation) member, ahead of the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

Since then it has taught swimming at every level in Bermuda, from taking those first few strokes to  Olympic qualifying times.

In 1981 BASA built its 25-metre pool at Saltus to encourage more children to take up the sport.

It has also taught thousands of youngsters to swim through its successful Summer Island and Get Wet programmes.

The Summer Island programme attracts up to 400 children each year, age seven and up.

That and the Get Wet programme are usually oversubscribed.

Get Wet teaches primary and middle school students how to swim plus water safety over six weeks. The programmes take place twice a year, in the summer holidays and in September.

BASA also has four competitive swimming clubs — Dolphin Swim Club, Harbour Amateur Swimming Club, Sharks Swim Club and Sandys 360.

Up to 200 youngsters regularly compete in BASA’s local competitive swimming programme, and have the opportunity to progress into elite athletes through BASA’s Training Programme and the National Training Squad.

From there they can train up to international standards and compete in overseas meets. BASA regularly sends teams to the Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA) Games, the Caribbean Island Swimming Championships (CISC) and the Central American and Caribbean Confederation (CCCAN) Swimming Championships.

It also sends senior teams to the Island, Commonwealth, Pan Am and Olympic Games, and the World Swimming Championships.

There are currently 10 swimmers recognized by the Bermuda Olympics Association, two of whom, Kiera Aitken and Roy-Allan Burch have competed in Olympic Games.

BASA is a non-profit organization run by a Board of Directors, consisting of individuals from  member clubs.

Aquatics manager and national coach Ben Smith manages the pool and swim programmes, assisted by national coach Richard Goodwin and administrator Lisa Hines.

BASA also has a general swimming club for members of the public. The Bermuda Masters Swimming Association promotes health and fitness among adults, as well as competitive swimming.

There are clinics to improve strokes and training, as well as general lane swimming for people of all abilities.

Mr Petty said: “The aim of our organization is, we run it as a pyramid and get as many kids as we can at the base.

“We take them right from the start, with classes in learning how to swim and our Get Wet programmes, which we start teaching at age five.

“The club memberships tend to start from age eight and up, once you can swim 25 metres in each of the four strokes.

“As young people go through the sport, you quickly find out who is good and who wants to race competitively overseas.

“The costs of taking people away to swim are high, however. We rely on a grant from Government, and the Bermuda Olympic Association assists us tremendously.”

He said: “We get sponsorship of our local swim meets through companies, typically Mailboxes, Makin Waves and BEST Shipping. They’ve all been sponsors for a number of years now.

“BASA also runs a training camp at Coral Springs, Florida, once a year, where there is also a good swimming meet for the various age groups.”

Mr Petty said: “As the governing body of swimming on the island, we get a Government grant but unfortunately this is never enough.

“We have to cover our staff, the costs of running the pool (heated in the winter), electricity and maintenance. This is in excess of $2-300,000 a year.

Exercise

“The Government grant can only be used for the development of kids, such as taking them away to overseas swim meets. So we raise revenue for the pool through our swimming programmes and club membership fees.

“The club members are aged up to about 16, as once they go off to university we tend to lose them. We do have a 41-year-old club swimmer, Lisa Blackburn, but she is an anomaly.

“Then there are our Masters club swimmers — people who typically swim for exercise. They swim in the early morning and at lunchtimes, using the pool like a gym.

“Our national coach and aquatics manager Ben Smith also runs individual and group classes to improve people’s technique.”

BASA leases the land for the pool from Saltus Grammar School, with whom it also has an agreement for usage.

“There’s an inter-school swim meet in the Fall and so for a few weeks beforehand the students use the pool,” said Mr Petty.

“We have a peppercorn lease with the school for the land and so they use the pool for about one-and-a-half hours a day, for a month.”

Tomorrow’s Swimathon will be the fourth such fundraiser of its kind organized by BASA.

The swimathons of the previous two years raised $75,000 towards the costs of  resurfacing the pool.

This year the funds will go towards various BASA programmes.

“We do a number of fundraising events throughout the year but the Swimathon is our number one fundraiser,” said Mr Petty.

“It’s one of the ways by which we reach out to the community at large rather than just the swimming community. The kids each have pledge sheets they take home to their friends and families.”

The event also marks the official reopening of the pool and will feature the Saltus Jazz Band and a cocktail reception.

“The pool looks great,” said Mr Petty. “We had a ‘soft’ opening in March but are making this Swimathon our gallery reopening. It’s good to have it back.

“As an old concrete pool it was in dire need of repair. It was resurfaced with a product called Diamond Brite, installed by M & M Construction.

“We also put a fresh coat of paint in the changing rooms, resurfaced the starting blocks and bought new lanes. We replaced some of the lights with LED lighting, to make them brighter and more energy-efficient.

“While the pool was out of service, our swimmers went to Warwick Academy or Sandys 360 to train.”

Mr Petty said up to 250 swimmers use the 25 x 10 metre pool each week.

For local swim meets, up to 30 people are needed poolside to ensure competitors swim the correct stroke and complete their turns. Referees are also needed, while individual swimmers’ times are recorded by computer.

“We run clinics to train up our officials,” said Mr Petty. “It’s not like a football game where you just have a referee and a couple of linesmen.”

He said BASA actually oversees five disciplines: Swimming; synchronized swimming; diving; water polo; and open water swimming.

“BASA is extremely important. The national governing body of any sport has an important role to play in overseeing that sport, and we oversee swimming and aquatics in general.”

The organization is crucial to the development of Bermuda’s future athletes.

“Swimming is an intense sport and when you get to an international level there’s a lot of early mornings and mileage to be swum,” said Mr Petty.

“The peak of the pyramid gets sharp quite quickly.

“Right now we have Roy-Allan Burch as our top swimmer. He competed in the 2008 Beijing and 2012 London Olympic Games. Kiera Aitken also competed at the 2008 Olympic Games but has recently retired.

“Then in diving we’ve had Katura Horton-Perinchief, who competed in the 2004 Athens Olympics.”

Ms Horton-Perinchief was the first black woman to compete in diving at an Olympic Games.

The BASA pool is open to public membership and has on-site changing and shower facilities. It is located just a few minutes walk north of Hamilton, off Canal Road on the Saltus Grammar School campus.

Memberships can be purchased on an annual or monthly rate, or by the session.

There are discount rates for seniors and students, and coaching rates of $50 for a one-hour session.

The pool is cooled in the summer and warmed in winter to maintain a constant temperature of 78-82 degrees.

It is open from 11am-2pm Monday to Friday, and 6am-9am Monday, Wednesday and Friday (but closed on public holidays).

 For more information on BASA contact 292-1713 or e-mail [email protected] or [email protected]. See http://basa.bm.