Page 6 - DSA-Newsletter-Jan2020
P. 6
Olympic Coach Nugent guides
DSA’s budding champions
Focusing on technique and stroke
enhancement for better results, the clinic
was aimed at improving the performance of
budding champions at competitive levels.
Leigh Nugent, a well-known legend in Australian coaches and consider the sacrifices they make and thank them
Swimming and former Olympic Coach was at the for their contribution.
National Aquatic Centre, Bukit Jalil for the DSA Swim
Team Clinic on 12th October, 2019. Currently the State Head The clinic consisted of 3 sessions for the different age
Coach of Western Australia & South Australia, Leigh had earlier groups and open to all the members of the DSA Swimming
retired from his position as Head Coach of the Australian Club and DSA swimmers. Focusing on technique and
Swimming Team in 2013. He was the team’s Head Coach at the stroke enhancement for better results, the clinic was aimed
2004 Athens Olympics where Australia garnered its second- at improving the performance of budding champions at
best swimming medal tally – 7 Gold, 5 Silver and 3 Bronze competitive levels. A majority of the swimmers who
medals – the best being the 1956 Melbourne Games.
participated in the Clinic were from the
Leigh was recently honoured to have a trophy, the L M Nugent DSA Junior Swim Squad aged between
Trophy instituted after him, and awarded to the Champion team 8-12 years old. It was a great step to
at the State Teams Championships at the Australian Institute guide these swimmers at this young age
of Sport in Canberra. Very recently Leigh was also part of the to direct the skills and development in
#lookafteryourcoach campaign, an initiative launched by the the right direction. Leigh ran a series of
Brisbane based M5 Management Group. Leigh along with swim drills and skill work to improve the
Kareena Lee, the first swimmer to be named on the 2020 stroke techniques and spend time with
Olympic Team for Australia, joined the push to think about the the DSA coaches also, imparting his
extensive knowledge in the field during
the sharing sessions that followed. The
young swimmers were visibly enthused
by the presence and guidance of Leigh
and very attentive of the knowledge
development. It was greatly satisfying
to see results almost immediately with
swimmers making visible changes to their
performance.
An additional highlight of this clinic was
the training camp for seven promising
young athletes of the Swimming WA
team at the venue. This was part of a
new initiative formed by Swimming WA
with the assistance from the Department
of Local Government, Sport and Cultural
Industries Australia to create a sports
development relationship between
neighbouring nations. The focus of the
training camp was to simulate what
athletes would face when qualifying
for an Australian Team. Placing the
swimmers in a foreign country enabled
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