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| Sunday, 10 April 2005 |
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Royal swimmers train under Aussie coach Watson by Leslie Fernando Royal College swimmers are in luck's way. They will have the chance of training under a Australian swimming coach Grant Watson, who was brought down to Colombo by the Royal College Union Aquatic Club. Watson will train Royal College swimming squads comprising 70 swimmers in age groups from under 9 to under-19. The 'A' and 'B' squads are composed of 70 swimmers while 'C' squad has 50 swimmers from the age group under-11 which is the feeding squad to the 'A' and 'B' squads. Watson started his training programme on Friday and will continue until April 22 at the Royal College swimming pool. Watson is the assistant coach at the Nunawading Swimming Club, Victoria. The Nunawading Swimming Club is the home of Olympic's Breaststroke champion Brooke Hanson. Nunawading is one of Australia's most successful clubs that caters for all swimmers from junior to elite grades. It also needs to be mentioned that Sri Lanka's champion swimmer Conrad Francis also trained at Nunawading with another swimmer from Sri Lanka Daniel Lee. This relationship helped develop a desire in Watson to visit Sri Lanka. Swimming has been Watson's life since learning to swim as a child. He is a Masters Swimming Club member, swims on a regular basis to gain fitness and competes in open competitions during the summer season. Watson along with Simon Mule (gym coach) played an important role in the success of the 2004 Athens Breaststroke Silver Medallist Brook Hanson. Watson's main aim is to train the Royal swimmers to reach greater heights. They will be taught the basic lessons in swimming skills and follow-up with style corrections and other aspects of swimming. It is great on the part of Watson as he has volunteered to develop the swimming at Royal College and will be here for a period of 3 weeks. Royal College Union Aquatic Club with Upali Gunasekera - the Principal at the helm, is making all efforts to take college swimming to the top. It is the unstinted support of the Sydney Old Boys Association headed by Sonny Navaratnam and Old Royalist Iqbal Hassan and H. U. Lee who made the services of Watson possible. L.F. |
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