Olympic revolution at Dinnington pool

James Kirton, who swam for Team GB in Beijing in 2008, and Olympic prospect Braxston Timm, have joined forces to teach local kids at Aquafyn on Low Common Road.

Barnsley native Kirton is a business development officer for the company, and told the Guardian he believes their new brand of coaching can propel youngsters towards swimming success.

“I’ve done my years of graft in the pool and feel blessed that I can now pass on what I learned to, hopefully, future Olympians,” he said.

“How these kids are starting out at Aquafyn is 10 times better than how I started, so it’s definitely possible.”

The thinking behind Kirton and Timm’s coaching is to instil correct technique in kids from the outset.

Kirton, 27, insists this is somewhat revolutionary.

“I work with the top end teachers, and I’m working on developing what Aquafyn already had, which was a good set up.”

“We’re trying to revoluntionise lessons and teach kids the correct ways from the start, like they do in Australia and America – the majority of swim schools are teaching how you can swim from A to B, but we want to get kids swimming how they will when they join a swimming club.”

The Aquafyn ethos is to take toddlers and turn them into swimmers who can move into the region’s top clubs, and Kirton brought Timm on board as much for inspiration as swimming expertise.

“I got Braxston involved as a face of our swimming lessons, someone the kids can look up to,” he said.

“He does clinics and gets in to show them techniques and the kids love it.”

“Our aim is to take kids to where we think we’ve achieved all we can with them, and then pass them on to the likes of City of Sheffield Swim Squad, where I came from and where Braxston comes from.”

Aquafyn opened in April of last year, after a £250,000 project to turn an industrial unit into a swimming pool, following a four year period without a swimming venue in Dinnington.

The pool was part 
funded by the Coalfields Regeneration Trust.

For more information 
visit the website www.swimstarsanddolphins.com