SCARCE’S ELEVATION
HE’S accustomed to chasing gold but Bond University’s head swimming coach Richard Scarce has just been elevated to platinum status.
The renowned coach is in elite company, becoming just the 39th coach to ever achieve the platinum level accreditation from the Australian Swimming Coaches and Teachers Association.
“It is nice to be recognised and an honour to be up among my peers,” Scarce said.
“You look up to the great coaches when you are young and all the feats they have accomplished, so to be among them now is an honour.”
Scarce has coached Australian swimmers to world title glory and the Olympics.
He is currently focused on bringing Bond University’s elite squad – including world champion freestyler Alex Graham and breaststroker Jenna Strauch – through to the national trials and the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
“The squad is training really well at the moment,” he said. “We have been doing some racing with the electronic timing system in
Bond’s new world-class shortcourse pool, getting results on the big screen, so that has been fun.
“We’ve been doing Burleigh hill runs, beach and ocean training. Just something different to keep them fresh and engaged.
“They’ve done about 50km in the pool this week.
“We are really excited to get some competitions back on the calendar, and are focused on getting great results at the national titles next year ahead of Tokyo Olympics.”
Meanwhile, high performance swimmers will gather on the Gold Coast on Friday to compete in a virtual carnival.
Bond, TSS Aquatic, Chandler and Griffith University squads will assemble at Southport while USC Spartans will remain at their base in the Sunshine Coast.
Victorian athletes from MSAC and Nunawading squads will take up the challenge in Melbourne.
“It’s a great opportunity for the Australian swimmers to come together and do some racing and challenge each other in what would have been the start of the Olympics,” Scarce said.
“They all love to race, so they are excited by opportunity. They’ll compete against athletes in the pool and also their times will be posted so other swimmers across the country will be racing against them too.
“Our swimmers have been training really well but they love nothing more than racing, they are competitors.
“It’ll be all in good fun, but they’ll certainly want to win for bragging rights, they take that pretty seriously.”