Bermuda's elite athletes are exemplary role models

The only true ‘elite’ is the athlete who has excelled in his or her training and been recognised as such through the submission of an application to the Bermuda Olympic Association (BOA).

Certain meets, such as the Commonwealth Games’ Youth Commonwealth and World Championships’ Junior Worlds, have been created to develop the progression of skills required for this advancement.

“These events are of a very high calibre and have a very restrictive age bracket,” Mr. Smith said. “For us, once a swimmer has reached this level, they have made themselves elite in our sport.” National coach Richard Goodwin noted that, while BASA offers its swimmers tiered funding, the BOA supports its elite athletes in competitions abroad. When on island, elite athletes like Kiera Aitken and Roy-Allan Burch participate in the National Training Squad, which they initially joined by invitation.

Coach Smith explained: “BASA uses a set of qualifying standards that is developed by U.S. swimming to gauge the level of athletes. The standards start at B, then BB and then A. We use the A standard as the criteria for selection to the National training team … Swimmers that join the squad are given a guideline of what is expected of them when they are part of this squad.

“Swimmers on the squad will range from this starting level of A, all the way to our Olympic level athletes.” The National Programme, according to Mr. Smith, includes some 30 athletes, 18 of whom make up the core group; the others compete for schools overseas and for BASA when at home.

The squad’s one-and-half to two-hour training sessions three mornings per week consist of drills and swim sets that work specific parts of a swimming stroke and prepare the swimmer for races.

“This programme was put in place to give opportunities to our more competitive swimmers to train together and to improve their skills and level of competition by training with Bermuda’s best,” Mr. Smith said.

The sessions were designed to challenge the athletes and further develop them, as do the training camps and local and overseas meets.

Mr. Smith added: “The majority of the overseas success that we have seen over the last several years has come from swimmers who participate in this training programme… [and] all members of the training team get an opportunity to compete overseas.”

The FINA World Championships in Shanghai in July is the next biggest swimming event prior to the Olympics. Its very high qualifying time is close to that for London 2012, according to the coach, who said: “The swimmers who compete at Worlds will usually make up the swimmers that participate at the Olympics.”

Kiera Aitken currently is the only Bermuda swimmer to have met the standard.

According to BASA president, Tim Petty, two or three other swimmers are extremely close to qualifying for the Worlds and may well do so at one of the regional meets before then.

He lauded the swimmers that call the Bermuda Amateur Swimming Association home.

“I can’t think of any better role models than some of the top athletes in our sport right now, and that is in all age groups,” Mr. Petty said, “and it makes me incredibly proud of what we do.”