Cayman’s budding swimming champions got a welcome boost when a former Olympian gave them coaching tips last week.
Owen with little Sabrina |
Rada Owen paid a second visit to Grand Cayman and spent most of her time at the Lions Aquatic Centre dispensing her invaluable tips to appreciative kids of all ages. One of the lucky recipients of her tuition was Sabrina Dennis, 10, who loves going to Lions. Her father Rohan said: ‘Sabrina enjoys swimming and really took to Rada.’
The American competed at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. She got to the semi-finals of the 200 metres free and is famous for having a ‘flawless’ style. So perfect was Owen’s technique that it has been adopted by many swimming institutions as the model to aspire to.
So Cayman’s head swim coach Dominic Ross made a shrewd investment in bringing the bubbly Owen over again.
‘My week has been great,’ she says. ‘Any time I get to come down here is always a good time. Basically, with the kids, we were working on some technique which is especially important at the start of the school year. And generally just trying to get them excited about swimming. I wanted to show them that hard work can pay off and you can still have some fun with it.
‘The kids have been great. They listen and they’re interested in what I’m saying and they’re picking up the stroke corrections very quickly. I could see the improvement whilst they were just here with me, but the way they really will improve is if they can implement what I’m teaching a month from now in their hard workouts. That’s what I’m hoping to get across to them, don’t just do it well while I’m standing there watching you but it looks like they’re being really receptive to it, which I love to see.’
Owen was world ranked in the 200m and 400m freestyle in multiple international events, earned gold at the World University Games in the 800m free in 1999 and took the ‘All-American’ title all four years at Auburn University.
After watching underwater videotape of her, Auburn University coaches decided to encourage the other swimmers to emulate her ‘flawless’ freestyle technique. A DVD Swim Like Rada, helps those interested to improve their freestyle stroke. That innovative freestyle drill helped the Auburn University women’s team to the NCAA title in 2002.
Owen, 28, never actually labeled her style flawless, it just became universally acknowledged as such. ‘Those words have never come out of my mouth. I’m not a self proclaimed flawless technician. Freestyle is actually very technical and very technically scientifically tweaked. I never really worked on it until I kept on hearing from people that I had a great technique. It is a little bit natural ability, I was just somehow born with the ability to swim efficiently. But it wasn’t until I actually got to college that I started understanding that I could be faster just by changing and perfecting my technique. It was really intriguing for me.
‘If the kids are inspired by the fact that someone went to the Olympics, that’s great, but I don’t try to impress upon them that you’re only going to have fun if you reach this level. That’s not the case at all.
‘I’ve been retired now for three years and I’m still being brought in by various groups to work with kids. I think even at the earliest age they realise how much dedication is needed because even at this age you still have to have a lot of discipline. I mean, they could be off after school with their friends, but they’re not, instead they come here for swim practice. And they’re working hard too, not just hanging out.’
Owen’s parents made her a water baby. Her leg was put in a cast at eight months old because she was born with a congenital hip as the ball didn’t fit into the socket. Being in a cast, her natural instinct was to adopt the breast stroke kick.
‘When I was three and went to take water safety classes I naturally did the breast stroke kick despite not being taught to. Some coach happened to notice that this three-year-old was doing the breast stroke kick so I started going to the summer league and that turned into year-round age group swimming. And I was usually better at it than most others and just had fun with it. Eighteen years later I was swimming in the Olympics.’
For years after the Sydney Games Owen felt unnecessarily ashamed for ‘only’ getting to the semis, something she has now overcome. ‘I swam for the United States in the Olympic Games, that in itself is an accomplishment. I was hoping Athens (2004) would be my medal debut but unfortunately injury sidelined me.’
She trains triathletes too. ‘Triathletes tend to think that swimming is the scariest portion of their race. They don’t really know how to train themselves for it, so I’ve kind of fallen into giving private lessons. I was in Austin, Texas for four months and I trained a triathlete group called Iron Chicks. To see these women who had never done physical exercise in their lives was amazing. They had eight weeks to train for this triathlon. It was so rewarding to me to see them come out and do something. Just seeing them feeling that they had accomplished something was great. And it’s not easy, having to swim 800 metres in open waters when they’d never done anything in their lives.’
Owen was too modest to take credit for that but it was a testimony to her skills that she could help them swim that far so quickly.
Brought up in Virginia, she now lives in Los Angeles, a dumbbell’s throw away from Venice Beach and the famous Muscle Beach. In her spare time, like anyone with an ounce of creative juice would do living so near to Tinseltown, she is working on a TV script.
‘I’ve always wanted to work in entertainment, ever since I was a kid. As I got older I was thinking of producing and being the boss of everything and then I just started getting ideas. I’ve always wanted to write, never got paid for it or anything and I kind of put those two facets together. It’s kind of an edgy, more like HBO drama, little less strong than the Sopranos, more Entourage like comedy.’
Coach Ross says: ‘We’ve seen a lot of improvement in the kids’ technique, which is why we brought Rada down to work on their strokes. They’ve definitely taken to her and she’s been great with them.
‘We’ve got some positive feedback from parents and a few emails saying it’s great to have her down here. She’s worked with just about every kid in our competitive programme – that’s about 125. Money well spent, we’d have her down any time.’
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