Page 5 - DSA-Newsletter-2016-Jan
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News of your No. 1 Swim School Vol. 2 Issue 1 January 2016
best swimming education and coaching in
Australia.
TWO full days of classroom and
pool sessions
Bill Kirby’s 2-day swim clinic organised
by DSA was held at Bukit Jalil National
Aquatic Center. Bill took time off his
schedule to be with the aspiring swimmers
not only from the DSA swim Team but
also other clubs from Malaysia. There
were swimmers from Penang and Johor
clubs who came to attend and learn from
his expertise.
The Clinic was two full days of tightly
packed events with both classroom
sessions and a lot of pool sessions. Bill
first started off with the refining of basic
DSA Swim Clinic with techniques like
improving underwater
swims, to improving
Olympian Bill Kirby turnsandthenthe
starts. During the
course of the 2 days,
swimmers were put
through their paces,
“Swimming is a sport of inches, you have to fight for improving the little
areas to gain that
every single inch to be the best.” -Bill Kirby. much of an edge.
The swim clinic was
Bill Kirby is an Olympic Gold 2001 World Aquatics Championships in unique because it
Medallist and Australian Institute of Fukuoka, Japan, where along with Klim, not only focused on techniques, but it
Sport scholarship holder. Hackett and Thorpe, he lowered the challenged the swimmers to improve small
parts of their swimming skills. The clinic
4x200m freestyle relay world record to also included a game of water polo to
Kirby made his debut at the 1993 Pan 7m 4.66s. That record held firm for nearly provide an experience of team spirit. DSA
Pacific Championships before competing six years until United States relay team coaches also attended the clinic and along
at the 1994 Commonwealth Games in clocked in at 7m 3.24s at the 2007 World with Bill helped the swimmers further
Victoria, Canada and the 1994 World Championships in Melbourne, Australia. refine many finer points.
Aquatics Championships in Rome Bill, now a father of three, and with help being an olympian swimmer
as a butterfly swimmer. Kirby’s last of his wife, Saskia, and the rest of the parent
international competition was at the Kirby Swim Team focuses on offering the
The class room sessions gave the
opportunity for swimmers to learn and
understand the amount of training and
dedication Bill had to put in to become
an Olympian. Experiences were shared
also by Bill’s father, Bob, who talked to
the swimmers parents about their part in
supporting a swimmer to achieve their
goals. It was a very jovial atmosphere as
Bob had many anecdotes to share about
the early days which gave the parents
attending a lot of experiences to connect
with. As he said, the idea was to always
let the children perform their best, and
not solely about winning. As long as
they did their best and enjoyed what
they did, winning was not important. It
was a delightful experience in all for the
swimmers got to learn from an Olympic
Champion and hopefully they will benefit
from Bill Kirby’s experience which he
shared in these 2 days.
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