Message from Dan - We are shutdown, again! However we will all return!
On Saturday the whole country were waiting in anticipation as to what the Prime Minister was going to announce. We knew more restrictions were going to be put in place, and some businesses were to close but we didn’t know what the situation with pools would be. We were all waiting and sitting on our couches at 4pm in tremendous anticipation, then we found out it was delayed until 5pm, and then it came to light it was closer to 6:30pm. This delay was not good for our nerves but there was an important football match going on at the time (LFC v WHU) so the PM speech took a back seat anyway for me.
6:30pm arrived and the slides begun, "next slide please, next slide please", was a constant for nearly 15 minutes. I am not sure about everyone else but I had no interest in any slides, I just wanted to know what was shutting and what could stay open. As the speech continued Boris came on and he announced that there would be a second national lockdown with leisure centres having to shut, body blow for us all. There were some tears, anger and frustration, and rightly so, swimming is so important to us all.
Saving lives is of course the most important thing for everyone, but I honestly don’t see how shutting swimming pools is going to have any positive effect on the country. Swimming is proven to be very safe, and add to that the benefit swimming and sport has on everyone's physical and mental wellbeing, it is a very disappointing decision for the country.
Hopefully the lockdown will be for only 4 weeks, this we can live with. Yes, it is such a shame because our swimmers having been training magnificently, making huge gains in their swimming. Many of our swimmers were looking forward to some Level X racing and training hard into the winter with the hope of some proper racing in the spring. This is of course not now possible, but as mentioned, 4 weeks will fly by, then we will get back in the pool and crack on into December and then 2021.
It is our hope that we can put on some online Zoom Land training sessions, so we can keep some interactive training going. We think this would be good for all our swimmers and coaches, to keep in touch and have something to work together on. As always I would strongly recommend to keep as active as possible over the next 4 weeks. The weather is of course not as good but we can still train both in and out of the home on land, and schools and colleges are still open so if they put on games or PE lessons please try and attend as many as possible. As mentioned months ago, sports people need to keep active, so we can keep positive and excited for our second return to the pool.
Thank you once more to all who made our return to the pool in August possible, so much work has gone on behind the scenes from our CLO Team, committee, coaches and teachers so all our swimmers could return in a safe and happy environment. Our swimmers returned with tremendous motivation and I know we will return again with even more fire in our bellies.
I know all our swimmers will keep smiling over the next 4 weeks and look forward to getting back into the pool.
We will all return again.
Dan.
