03/01/13…..Olympic swimmer returns to Thame for Masterclass

THAME Swimming Club welcomed ex-Team GB Olympic swimmer and club patron, Simon Burnett and his wife, Team USA swimmer Whitney Myers-Burnett when they hosted a Christmas Master Class on Friday, December 28, 2012, at Thame swimming Pool.

Simon and Whitney held a thirty minute lecture at the start of the event giving swimmers an insight into their swimming careers and how it is important to focus during training. They also gave the Thame swimmers tips about how doing different things make you faster or slower, and then how to repeat that to be faster in a race situation.

The couple met club members and answered questions from the swimmers before they went to get changed for the two hour pool based session. In the pool, the swimmers practised training drills for all the strokes, trying different things to see what made a real difference to their speed. The session finished with some races where the swimmers had the chance to race against both Whitney and Simon.

Ian Goetz, the Chairman of Thame Swimming Club, said: “Simon and Whitney gave up their time whilst on a Christmas holiday in the UK with Simon?s family to come and run a master class on competitive swimming. Thanks must go to the team from BETTER who run Thame Leisure Centre, who provided the two hours in the pool and also the lecture room for free as the event was to raise funds for Oxford based Urology Cancer Charity ? UCARE, who Simon is also the patron of. All agreed that the event was a great success.”

Jean Simmonds from UCARE thanked Simon and Whitney and the swimmers for raising a total of