Island Life Magazine Ltd January/February 2006 | Page 17

HOBBIES - SPORT - LEISURE Duncan makes a Splash at The Heights Scores of young swimmers enjoyed the thrill of holding an Olympic Gold swimming medal in their hands when Duncan Goodhew handed round his medal from the Moscow games of 1980. Duncan was visiting The Heights Leisure Centre in Sandown as the VIP guest for the Island’s annual “Learn to Swim” Gala event, sponsored by Southern Water. “It was a great inspiration for the kids to meet someone like Duncan,” said Heights Manager David McDine. “You never know, one of them might one day be as successful in the water as he has been”. But teaching kids to swim is not just about producing the competition superstars of the future. As David pointed out, on an island full of rivers, pools and unpredictable tides it’s also particularly important for their own safety that youngsters are taught to be good swimmers. On the Island, the Southern Water sponsorship pays for equipment and publicity and marketing for the ongoing Learn to Swim programme, which is run at the three council-run pools. The Heights alone can have 550 youngsters on the 6-8 week course programme at any one time, and David reckons that over the past 10 years, thousands of youngsters have been taught to swim – some of them going on to take it up as a competitive sport and others to work as coaches back at the pool where they themselves learned. before the coveted trophy was carried off by the team from the Waterside Pool in Ryde. Also competing was the home team from the Heights, a line-up from Medina Leisure Centre in Newport, and the Isle of Wight Swimming Team, drawn from members of the South Wight Swimming Club and Seaclose Swimming Club. The team from West Wight were unable to take part. After the gala, Duncan Goodhew conducted an informal question and answer session in which youngsters and their parents quizzed him about his swimming and heard how he’d overcome childhood handicaps including dyslexia and premature hair loss to become one of the UK’s best-known Olympic heroes. The Gala, in which four teams competed for the Learn To Swim Challenge Trophy, made for a thrilling programme of swimming – 17