Scholarship opens swimming lanes

MORE people are being encouraged to dive into competitive swimming thanks to a new scholarship program aimed at providing everyone with the opportunity.

Ballarat Gold Swimming Club, through the Ballarat Foundation’s Peter Amor Fund, will soon be one of the first groups to roll out Swimming Victoria’s All Abilities and Inclusion Scholarship.

Marissa Cofield, Ballarat Gold Swimming Club president said the program will make the sport more accessible for everyone.

“It’s a great opportunity for us to provide opportunities for kids that might be interested in taking up competitive swimming in areas that may not have looked at it before,” she said.

“That means different cultural backgrounds or financial hardship, kids with disabilities. This scholarship is open to all those groups to have a go at competitive swimming and squad training.

“For that period of time, they’ll have the club’s coaching, equipment, facilities available to them. This is of a scholarship recommendation from Swimming Victoria to clubs throughout the state.”

Ballarat Gold Swimming Club ran the scholarship’s pilot program held last year, and are expanding from its original incarnation of a single all-abilities day into a 15-week initiative.

With eight scholarships available, half of the program’s intake will begin their involvement next month after which the second round will be held.

Ms Cofield the scholarship is an example of the club’s strong background of diverse members.

“We’ve got a rich history of multiclass swimmers in our club already,” she said.

“We’ve had great success with our swimmers Sarah Howe and Anna Leighton, and the Special Olympics have since amalgamated with our club.”

Ms Cofield said the club is aiming to draw in children aged roughly between 12 to 17 years old with the scholarship.

“The teenage demographic is the area we see the biggest gap where there hasn’t really been that intake for a number of years,” she said.