Canadian swimmers pulling clear of SA
● The similarities between South African and Canadian swimming have been glaring, though obviously not their weather.
John Atkinson, the national coach and high-performance director for Canada, opted to sit in the shade rather than the pleasant autumn sun in Pretoria for our interview.
“I’m straight from the Canadian winter,” he explained with a friendly chuckle.
Their swimming, on the other hand, is red hot at the moment, thanks in no small part to Atkinson, who took up his post in 2013.
The year before Canada had won two medals and made seven finals at the 2012 London Olympics, and with two of them retiring, the country was on track to make no podiums at the Rio showpiece.
Historically, Canada swimming was worth zero to three Olympic medals per Games.
That is exactly the same harvest SA’s swimmers have achieved at all Olympics.
SA swimming’s greatest performances since readmission have been three medals — on four occasions. Penny Heyns won two golds and Marianne Kriel a bronze at Atlanta 1996, and Roland Schoeman and the freestyle relay team took gold, silver and bronze at Athens 2004.
Le Clos and Van der Burgh
Chad Le Clos and Cameron van der Burgh won two golds and a silver at London 2012, and four years later they returned from Brazil with three silvers.
Sydney 2000 was worth two medals and there were none at Barcelona 1992 and Beijing 2008.
The parallel to Canada has been uncanny, but that came to an end in Rio, where Atkinson’s charges landed six gongs.
Two of them were in women’s relays, giving Canada 11 medallists that year — SA has had nine swimmers on games podiums since 1996.
Of SA’s seven medallists pre-2008, five trained in the US. Van der Burgh and Le Clos were home-grown.
While Atkinson is quick to point out that US colleges are still useful, they are no longer critical for Olympic success.
“Since 2007 95% of all the individual medals that have been won by Canada at all the world championships and Olympic Games came from athletes training in Canada,” said Atkinson, who also worked in various roles at British Swimming for 12 years.
More countries are relying less on the US and producing their own stars.
Atkinson, who has been tasked to get Canadian swimming ranked in the top five in the world, was planning for the Tokyo 2020 Games back in 2013. “I’m already looking at Paris 2024.”
Nowadays he says Canada will win between three and five Olympic medals.
SA is still in the zero-to-three range. Atkinson is currently in Pretoria speaking at a swimming coach conference.
Hopefully they will learn a few tricks.