BHUBANESWAR: The JSW Group on Thursday announced the appointments of seasoned South African swim coach Douglas Eager and Olympian and Asian Games medalist Sandeep Sejwal to lead the Odisha JSW Swimming High Performance Centre (OJSHPC) based out of the Kalinga stadium here.
A unique partnership between the state and JSW has seen the conglomerate lead the technical aspects of the swim program in Odisha and establish best practices to offer coaching programs aimed at developing Indian swimmers capable of achieving FINA ‘A’ Qualification times for World Championships and the Olympics in 8-12 years. A total of 34 swimmers have already been identified as part of the HPC since its inception.
Eager brings over two decades of coaching experience having trained top international swimmers including Olympic and Commonwealth Games medalist Lyndon Ferns.
The OJSHPC will be part of a network of HPCs being set up under the umbrella of the Inspire Institute of Sport (IIS), India’s first privately-funded high performance centre established by JSW and furthers the group’s commitment to the state of Odisha and the holistic growth and development of Olympic disciplines in the country.
Speaking about the program, R Vineel Krishna, Sports Secretary, Odisha, said: “Swimming is amongst a priority sports for us and we aim to promote it both as a sport and also as an important life skill, right from grassroots to elite. We are very happy the way JSW has engaged experts to take the sport of swimming to a greater level, in Odisha. The HPC trainees are already making their mark at different competitions and we are confident our unique partnership with JSW will be instrumental in creating champions of tomorrow.”
Besides the HPC, JSW is also focusing efforts on a statewide grassroots program through a network of 8 training centres across Odisha. The focus at these centres is a ‘Learn to Swim’ program aimed at getting more children to take up swimming as a life skill and create a performance pathway for swimmers in the state. A Coach Development initiative is also being put in place for continuous professional development of state coaches through certifications and workshops with international swim coaches.
The program further expands the network of training centres being developed by the JSW Group under the Inspire Institute of Sport High Performance network. Highlighting the importance of the Odisha program, Rushdee Warley, CEO of IIS said, “The JSW-Odisha Swimming HPC is a great model of active partnership between a state government and the private sector. We are taking learnings from the world class daily training environment for the elite youth levels we’ve set up at the IIS, and adding a grassroots layer of swimming as a life-skill, which will help broad base the sport and increase its acceptance among the youth.
With swimming’s popularity, and the significant number of medals on offer at major events, this program will also play a role in furthering the JSW Group’s commitment to building India’s competitiveness on the global sporting stage in the not-too-distant future.”
