David

My name is David Glover and I am a 38 years old. I have a passion for swimming and represented South Africa as a junior in the sport. I went to Perth in 1994 for the Junior Pan Pacific Schools games and continued swimming until the age of 22. I also won the Junior Victor Ludorum at SA Primary Schools and my best placing at Senior Nationals was 10th place. I swam for Aquabear swim club for all my years and was trained as a coach by Brian Elliott, the head coach of Aquabear.

I began my coaching at the age of 19 and started off going to peoples’ homes and teaching their little ones how to swim and be water safe. I did however, not have any specific course experience and taught them how to swim using my knowledge of what I learned at swimming and from shadowing Brian and other coaches. I also helped out at a school called VP Grey and coached their swimmers 3 times a week. Many of them were from under privileged backgrounds and quite a few of the swimmers I had to teach, taking them right back to the basics.

At the age of 21, I then started coaching for Aquabear and coached the juniors ( ages 8 – 11 ). I enjoyed coaching this age group and over 2 seasons, 2003 and 2004, my numbers increased from about 10 – 30. Over the next 2 years I then moved on with these swimmers and they started to perform at the Level 1, 2 and 3 competitions. From about 2006 and onwards my list of achievements as a coach included:

I am also a swimming coach and teacher at St George’s Prep School in Port Elizabeth. I am the head of swimming at the school and in the 2013/2014 season we won the best co-ed school prize, scoring the most points over the season. This is an amazing achievement for our school as we are a very small private school with far less swimmers to choose from than the rest of Port Elizabeth.

I opened Infinity Swimming Academy in May 2016 and the club has just finished its 4th season. At present I have about 90 registered swimmers in the club as well as about another 60 swimmers who are part of the academy. I am coaching children between the age of 7 and 22 as well as some Masters swimmers and am hoping to bring many of the younger swimmers through the ranks to represent South Africa one day. My dream is to one day take someone to the Olympics and I am passionate about helping improve the standard of South African Swimming to even greater heights.

Deshaan

I have been a swimmer for most of my life. My parents decided that I should go for lessons and learn to swim properly, and the rest, as they say, is history. A big deciding factor in my swimming career was when my Dad, older brother and I swam the Merrifield mile, my first open water swimming event at the age of 11. This event made me decide that I wanted to take swimming more seriously and race more open water events as well.

Swimming has become a big passion in my life, perhaps my main passion and it has been this way pretty much since I started swimming. It also helped having brothers who kept me on my toes and ready to compete (sibling rivalry can also be a good thing). Having a younger brother who is strong willed and determined helped me to develop my skills as a mentor and coach. I loved helping him and teaching him throughout the years, growing up. My older brother always provided the milestones that I, as an athlete, would’ve wanted to achieve by the time I had gotten to his age (or before). We both understood that and there was never any jealousy or bad blood between any of us (I believe that this is the biggest lesson to learn as a young athlete). It helps that my parents were and continue to be extremely supportive in any of our endeavours. They have taught me extremely well when it comes to dealing with, nurturing and assisting individuals to the best of my ability as well as helping others become the best possible version of themselves, not only in the swimming pool but in life, school and the workplace. As an athlete I have worked with a few coaches throughout my swimming career, namely Vionne Skinner of Harlequins aquatics, Matthew Palmer of Ultimate Swim club and currently working with Dave, Sam and Bryce at Infinity.

Vionne, or V as we call her (also a former elite level athlete), instilled a love for the sport in me and the rest of her swimmers while managing to teach us how to train and swim correctly. Matt is incredibly knowledgeable and taught me and the other swimmers how to race tactically and efficiently with the correct stroke and technique while sharpening our skills mentally and physically (also a former elite level athlete). Right now, I am learning and continue to learn from the coaches and swimmers I work with, as I believe that being open to new experiences and knowledge is imperative to achieving success.

Some of my sporting achievements are listed below:

Sam

Sam loves children and helping them achieve their full potential and is passionate about swimming from Learn to Swim to Senior Nationals Level. She swam her first 50m gala aged 5 and couldn't get enough of the sport. She got her provincial colours every year from 8. She competed at seniors’ nationals aged 15, 16 and 17. At 19 she competed for Durban surf at world lifesaving rescue '96. Her team got gold in the ball throwing event, she got 6th in the 50m dummy tow and 8th in the surf swim. Durban surf won the still water section and came second overall. She also had provincial colours for Biathlon and loved open water events. Her best was 2nd in the Midmar mile U13. Sam has been Learn to Swim qualified since 2001 and coaching since 2012.

Bryce

As a child I was always in the water. I learnt to swim when my uncle promised to catch me if I jumped into the deep end. He didn’t and I fell to the bottom. The next day my parents couldn’t get me out of the water as I was now hooked. I swam my first gala in Grade R and won every race I competed in. When High School came, I chose swimming as the only sport and my dream was to compete at the Olympics. I majored in backstroke and was near the top of my age group in Border. I also competed at SA Short Course and SA Senior Nationals. After going through a few tough times, I decided that I was not going to make the Olympics and stopped swimming. I then took up the amazing opportunity to coach at Infinity with David. Now I have the same dream, still the Olympics, but not me anymore, but one of the extremely talented swimmers at Infinity Swimming Academy.