Maccabiah swimmers bond in the pool
Fifty swimmers from around Australia came together for a long weekend of training, motivation and bonding in Noosa, on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.
Maccabiah bound
For the 22 juniors, 10 open and 18 masters swimmers, the four-day day swim camp was the first chance for a lot of the squad to meet head coach John Rodgers, who lives in Noosa, and to experience his tough-love training.
The camp focused on team building, skills training and in a lot of ways mimicked conditions that the swimmers will face in Israel in their huge meet, to be held at Wingate, with rigorous training, land sessions, and race planning.
It gave the coaches and team managers a chance to get to know the strengths of the team but also provided a closed environment to communicate their expectations of the swimmers. In addition, the managers clarified logistics and established a set of values that will define how the team will express itself.
The team assembled each morning at the Noosa pool to complete a rigorous training set – followed a team breakfast.
Highlights included having the Maccabiah torch alongside them at the camp, holding a Yom Hashoah memorial and remembering the bravery of the Anzacs, at Noosa beach.
The team came up with the nickname Maccabi Barracudas – and the chant you will hear in the pool deck will be BCW, which was developed by the team in one of the team breakouts.
Believe, commit, win.
It was a highly successful camp in our swimmers’ journeys towards their Maccabiah dreams.
