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WSF proudly presents.... |
Dear friends of the World Sports Festival!
A long winter season finally started and we will definitely prepare in the best possible way for the upcoming year. It is not always easy to motivate yourself for a sometimes exhausting and hard training. Therefore it is absolutely necessary to set attractive targets that are worth fighting for and accepting these struggles. Especially with young athletes it is essential to offer concrete perspectives they can work towards.
The swimming tournament at the WSF is in the very lucky position to offer such a motivator: the Swiss talent foundry „SC Romanshorn “ confirmed its participation again at the WSF 2012.
Use this chance and give your team the possibility to either compete against a professional team or just watch them play to get some precious tips for the following training sessions.
SC Romanshorn - Interview with coach Gerber
1. During the last decade swimming sport experienced enormous popularity. What do you think – how important is swimming in Switzerland?
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The same is true for Switzerland too – swimming experiences a massive upwards trend, which may be due to great performances of top-athletes like Dominik Meichtry, Flori Lang and Swann Oberson. Nevertheless, swimming is still a fringe sport in Switzerland.
2. There is a swimming school integrated in your club – the SC Romanshorn. What is the right age for a child to start with training?
For children aged 2 years or older, our swimming school offers parents-child courses to habituate the kids to water and to show them how much fun and joy water can be. In order to participate in other swimming courses, children have to be at least 4.5 years old. In our opinion this is the minimum age to understand the exercises properly as otherwise it is too difficult for them to learn the basics properly. In general you could say that our kids are 5 years old when they start their swimming career.
3. How many kilometers do your young high-performance athletes swim in one year, to reach top ranks?
Our high-performance swimmer Bastian Narr (15) – who has already won some gold medals at the WSF – makes about 7 training sessions à 5 kilometers per week. But he also participates in trainings camps where they do more kilometers. In total he is swimming about 1800 kilometer per year. In Switzerland it is quite difficult to combine a time-consuming and very intense sport like swimming with the athlete’s schools.
4. Are there rather boys or girls in swimming sport – did you notice any changes during the last years?
In our region and in our club we have always had more girls. Especially with boys soccer and ice hockey are more popular. There was a change during the last years, as the number of little boys in our club increased. We are also offering a poly-sportive kids course which is visited by boys too. In my sharks group the ratio girls:boys is only 15:5. Nevertheless, we have some great young male talents waiting in the starting blocks.
5. At the WSF athletes with different performance levels compete against each other. Are there any other comparable youth sports events for swimming, which are also suitable for athletes active in popular sport?
In my opinion this is something that makes the WSF very special and unique, as in our region there are only a few tournaments offering such a wide field of participants. Usually it is always separated, as there are events where only good swimmers with certain limits can participate and then there are events for hobby athletes where pros are not really welcome. For our club it is easier and more interesting to participate in competitions that every athlete can join. We selected some tournaments in Switzerland, Germany and the Tyrol and those are fixed elements of our yearly schedule. For us, team spirit is one of the most important things, even if swimming is an individual sports. I think that the training is more fun, if you can share your joy. Also competition is more fun, if there are other team members who cheer you on.
