Our club has received some amazing recognition in the past few weeks. Two of our swimmers Leah Soetaert and Olivia Howse have been nominated by the provincial swimming organization (SwimBC) to the Pacific Sports institute. This means the girls are among a very select group of athletes which will receive benefits from the Pacific Sports institute.
The aim of the institute is to provide elite facilities and services to help the girls in their development. The girls with receive support with nutrition, bio mechanical analysis and performance analysis. The girls are the first in our club’s history to be accepted into the institute, so it is a historic achievement.
The vision tatement from the Pacific Sport institute is, “with the support of our partners, our team of experts deliver sport science and medicine, coaching and life services to Power Podium Performances and help Canada win more medals.”
On a personal note I received a $2,000 coaching scholarship from SwimBC to travel to Indiana USA. I will be visiting two high schools in February 2020 (Hamilton Southeastern and Carmel) and working with two of the best high school coaches in the USA.
Carmel swim team has won the swimming state championships for 33 years in a row. This is the most winning team of any high school sport in USA. The purpose of the trip is to learn how the best training programs create a positive world class culture. It will be an amazing opportunity to learn and will help the Elk Valley Dolphins keep going in the right direction. Coaching scholarships are a fantastic way to help the club succeed and gain invaluable knowledge. This is again a first for the club!
Both of the scholarships are a result of the hard work that has taken place at the Dolphins over the last few years from both the athletes and the coaching staff. If the club can continue to keep on this track there will be many more swimmers in the valley which will benefit!
