Federation Internationale de Natation (FINA) lecturer John Stathis believes Fiji have the coaches and facilities to develop good professional swim­mers.

Stathis is in the country conduct­ing a three-day training for coaches and swimmers in Suva. This is an accreditation course providing par­ticipants with the opportunity to become recognised coaches across international swimming institu­tions around the world.

This opportunity has been pos­sible through FINA. At the core of this programme, they believe in giving the opportunity to all coach­es to progress and have credit for their achievements.

“One thing good about Fiji they have some enthusiastic coaches, you have good facility here and in some places they don’t have the fa­cility to develop good swimmers,” Stathis said.

“They have good programmes for swimmers and a 50-metre pool is important part to develop the sport.”

Stathis believes it is important to polish up on a few skills and tech­niques on strokes.

“This certification programme is assisting coaches to develop their skills, develop junior swimmers and give them technical aspects of strokes and how to basically devel­op the skills as coaches.

“So the idea was to give them a starting point for their coaching and help them with their ability.

“Our first day went very well as we had the full support from the fed­eration. We spent four hours in lec­ture, discussing technical aspects of all the strokes, execute turns and also assist coaches in setting up ses­sion plans,” he added.

The swimmers will go through the athlete development support path­way and periodisation programme today alongside basic physiology.

Edited by Leone Cabenatabua

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