PNG swimming step up

By KEVIN TEME
PAPUA New Guinea will continue to improve on the level of coaching for swimming by attaching  reliable coaching and technical professionals.
Last month, PNG Swimming Inc organised a swim clinic where Australian swim coach Kellie Ball came to deliver the course programme on biomechanics, the four strokes – freestyle, backstroke, butterfly and breaststroke – drills and skills, turns, statistics and finishes, dry land conditioning, type of training and training programmes, tests sets, stroke simplification for learning to swim, lesson planning and teaching progressions.
Ball began her teaching and coaching career in 1998 at the Australian Institute of Sports in Canberra and, in 2000, she completed a bachelor in applied science in sports as well as completing her bronze level coaching.
“Through her coaching experience over the past 10 years as a former head coach in Otumoetai swimming club, Taranga, New Zealand, and later as a partner in “Mission to Swim” and swim school in South Mission Beach, Queensland, Ball brought a wealth of knowledge to PNG,” PNG Swimming Inc president Elizabeth Wells said.
The course was conducted under the FINA development programme with an enthusiastic group of 30 course participants taking part including physical education school teachers and their assistants from schools with in the nation’s capital.
“Our goal is to provide our swimmers with the best coaching available in PNG and we need to educate our coaches to provide them with the latest and best information available to progress in this field,” Wells said.
She said Ball came to PNG with a great wealth of knowledge to impart to our coaches giving clear, concise explanations understood by all who attended and without the support from Australian Swim Coaches and Teachers Association (ASCTA) this would not have happened.
The four-day, eight- hour session ended last week.