Danyon Loader Swimming

Olympic Education Danyon Loader Swimming

Early years Some of Danyon Loader’s earliest memories are of playing with his father in the swimming pool. “We had such fun times together, playing in the water. I loved the water and felt confident in it from a very early age.” Danyon loved the water so much that sometimes he had four baths a day. When he was ten years old, Danyon joined a swim club coached by Duncan Laing. Danyon’s meeting with Duncan Laing was to change his life. As well as swimming, Danyon liked playing other sports, especially soccer and cricket. Mr Laing, as Danyon always called him, pointed out that Danyon was missing some of his training sessions to play other sports, so it wasn’t surprising that he was getting beaten in the interclub swim meetings. For swim coach Duncan Laing, Danyon wasn’t really too bothered about this, until he was twelve and he the meeting with Danyon attended Mr Laing’s summer swim school. It was a tough two weeks, training was also very important. In 1965, during a speech to the six hours every day. The morning schedule was two hours in the water and Otago Swimming Association, an hour of gym work. After lunch, there was an hour of weight training and Duncan Laing said his ambition a final two hours in the water. Something clicked in Danyon. He loved every was to coach an Olympic minute of the hard work. From then on, he was committed to swimming. gold medallist. The Otago Association officials laughed at Thanks to his commitment, Danyon began achieving wins in his age him. Mr Laing was so hurt that group competitions. He became motivated to put even more work into his he walked out. It took all the swimming. He trained twice a day, six days a week, and started to realise that persuasive powers of his son there was a direct link with the amount of work he put in and the winning Stefan for him to return to the results. Some of his times were good enough to win races in the 18-year-old meeting. age group!

Competitions Danyon’s times were good enough for him to be selected for the 1990 Commonwealth Games in Auckland. The training sessions were tough. Mr Laing set up a board at the end of the pool and wrote on it what he expected the swim squad to do. Danyon would swim 8–10 kilometres per session to build up his stamina. He practiced starts and he practiced turns. Before a competition, Mr Laing would taper down the distance but increase the speed work. At the Auckland Commonwealth Games, as a 14 year old, Danyon swam in the 400m and 1500m freestyle races. He was racing to beat his personal best times, and he gained valuable experience in top-level racing. Danyon’s first overseas competition was the 1991 Pan-Pacific Championships in Canada. The New Zealand Swimming Association had only budgeted for twelve swimmers to attend, and Danyon was thirteenth on the list. To help raise the funds he needed to go to Canada, his parents estimate they sold 500 dozen cheese rolls and 500 dozen lamingtons. While Danyon didn’t place in the competition, it was an amazing experience for the young swimmer. Barcelona, 1992 The benefits of his experience were obvious in 1992, when Danyon was selected for the Barcelona Olympic Games. His first Olympic Games were a magical experience. He enjoyed the rich history of Barcelona. He enjoyed the Olympic atmosphere. He found himself sitting near his sports heroes in the Olympic Village dining room, overawed. It would have been easy to become distracted by the excitement and the atmosphere of the Olympic experience, but Danyon felt empowered. The world was watching him and here was his chance to show his stuff. He’d been training for seven years for this. Danyon swam incredibly well in the heats and achieved a place in the 200m butterfly final. Mr Laing calmly told him, “Anything can happen in a final.” And wonderful things did happen that day. At the final turn in the race, Danyon missed touching the wall. He paused to retouch the wall correctly, touching both hands impatiently on the sensor pad to avoid disqualification. He was angry with himself for messing up the turn in such an important race, and this anger helped him surge down the pool in a brilliant burst of speed. Danyon improved on his personal best time by 3.36 seconds and won a silver medal. He stood on the podium, hardly able to believe that he was an Olympic silver medallist. He was just 17 – New Zealand’s youngest Olympic medallist. He was very conscious of not wanting to seem big-headed, so he asked his friends to ‘watch him’ and give him a ‘thump’ if he showed signs of acting superior.

Buildup to Atlanta Mr Laing and Danyon planned a four-year buildup to the next Olympic Games. Danyon focused on intensive training at the summer swim camps each January. This meant he was in great condition for national competitions, so he could qualify for overseas competitions. They also planned some breaks for Danyon to relax. During this buildup, his results at important swim meetings were very impressive. Danyon swam at the Victoria Commonwealth Games in Canada in 1994. He won five medals overall: gold in the 200m butterfly, silver in the 400m freestyle, bronze in the 200m freestyle and 2 silver medals in the relays. At the 1994 World Aquatic Championships in Rome, Danyon was second in the 200m butterfly and third in the 200m and 400m freestyle races. His confidence was growing as he raced against the best swimmers in the world. His meticulous preparation, combined with Mr Laing’s supportive coaching, was paying off. And New Zealanders were starting to expect great results from him. Could he handle the pressure?

The grind of training continued. Mr Laing added an hour of weight training to the pool sessions. Danyon often felt tired and hungry, and yet he still turned up, day after day, to the hard training sessions. Each Sunday was a welcome recovery day. At the same time, he was becoming good friends with the others in the swim squad. They marvelled at and admired the work he put into his training. Mr Laing made the training sessions fun. As well as being a great motivator and coach, he was an entertaining story-teller. The XXVI Olympic Games After four years of hard work, Danyon was selected to compete in his second Olympic Games, this time in Atlanta in the United States, in 1996. Danyon was to compete in both the 200m and 400m freestyle, and the 200m butterfly. He and Mr Laing were better prepared than they were in Barcelona four years previously. Atlanta is about 320 metres above sea level. This means there is less oxygen in the air, which makes it harder for athletes’ bodies to perform well. Danyon had done some altitude training to improve his performance in this environment. Mr Laing was quietly confident that “things would happen.” They had analysed the strengths and weaknesses of the other competitors. They had planned their campaign through the heats and finals. When it came to the races, Danyon was further motivated by the crowd. As American and Australian swimmers were introduced, they were welcomed with thunderous cheers. When Danyon was introduced, the cheer was a small one. This could have been discouraging, but Danyon turned it into a positive, vowing, “I’ll show them”. He was very clear about what he had to do. He later said, “My job at the Olympic Games was to swim beyond my best”. In the heats, he felt very strong and he improved on his personal best times. His time in the 200m freestyle heats was good enough for a place in the final. Once again, Mr Laing said calmly, “Anything can happen in a final”. Eight swimmers lined up for the 200m freestyle final. In spite of all the top-level racing he had done, Danyon was the last off the blocks and was in fifth place after 50m. By the end of the second lap he had surged into second place. He took over the lead with 75m to swim. Well known for his fast sprint finishes, Danyon held the psychological advantage over the other swimmers and raced powerfully through the last lap to touch first. Danyon Loader acknowledges the crowd after winning the 200m freestyle final in Atlanta, 1996

Danyon Loader had won a gold medal. The New Zealand public was ecstatic as they celebrated a swimming gold medal. No one competing for New Zealand had ever done this before. The next day, Danyon competed in the 200m butterfly heats. New Zealanders expected him to win, after his silver medal in the event four years before. However, he swam well below his best in this race and was placed nineteenth. Back in New Zealand, comments like, “Danyon Dunked” and “Loader Fails,” were splashed across the headlines. Danyon was disappointed that he didn’t get beyond the heats, but again he turned it into a positive, saying, “By not qualifying for the butterfly finals, I had the benefit of an extra day of rest”. At the Stockholm Olympic So Danyon and Mr Laing focused on the upcoming 400m freestyle heats. Games in 1912, Malcolm Again Danyon improved on his personal best and qualified for the final. Champion won a gold medal in the 4x100m relay as a member And again, Mr Laing said calmly, “Anything can happen in a final”. of the Australasian team. He was Between the 400m heats and the 400m final were the heats for the 4x100m the first New Zealander to win a gold medal, and New Zealand’s men’s freestyle relay. Mr Laing advised Danyon not swim in the relay heat and only swimming gold medallist to save his energy for the 400m final. It was one of the very few times that until Danyon Loader’s success in Danyon did not take Mr Laing’s advice. He swam in the relay heat because he 1996. did not want to let his team mates down. The 400m freestyle final was Danyon’s sixth race in ten days. It was also his third race on that day. For the 400m freestyle final, Danyon was in lane 6. He swam conservatively for the first four laps and was in fourth place at 200m. By 300m he had taken the lead and was powering through the water. There was a remote-controlled, underwater camera moving along the bottom of the pool filming the race, and keeping just ahead of the swimmers. Danyon focused on trying to catch up with it. “Faster, faster,” he told himself as he surged through the water, ignoring the pain of muscles that have been asked to do too much for too long. “Keep your stroke long and strong, long and strong,” he told himself. Up in the stands, Mr Laing closed his eyes and turned away from the tumult in the churning pool below. It was a fast finish. Sprinting as never before, Danyon at last touched the end of the pool. He glanced up at the score board and relief flooded over him. He had won, and his win was even more convincing than in the 200m final. Again he stood on the podium, his long arms stretched high, with the medal swinging and shining as the crowd cheered. He had proven that a New Zealander could be a world-beater in the pool.

His parents were in the crowd. In fact it was his Dad’s birthday. What a present! Movie stars Bruce Willis and Demi Moore were also in the crowd. For a fellow who had just won his second gold medal, enjoyed wonderful support from his parents and his coach, and who loved movies, life was pretty good. He held the winner’s flowers above his head and acknowledged the crowd as the medal settled comfortably round his neck.

Danyon and Mr Laing after the 400m freestyle final

Then he and Mr Laing had an important phone call to make. Mr Laing dialled the number of his son Stefan. With great satisfaction, he told his son that he had trained not only an Olympic gold medallist, but a double Olympic gold medallist. The laughter and hurt that Mr Laing remembered from his speech to the Otago Swimming Association all those years ago had vanished.

To fully understand the significance of Danyon’s achievements, two gold medals and a silver medal, we need to measure them against the size and depth of international swimming. Swimming is one of the world’s most competitive sports, like athletics. If we do this we must rank Danyon very close to Sir Peter Snell, the great NZ athlete who won one gold medal in Rome (1960) and two gold medals in Tokyo (1964). Years later Danyon would say, “But I was just a normal boy from a normal family. We lived in a normal suburb with a fish and chip shop, a book shop, an RSA, a dairy, and a butcher”. Maybe we could say that Danyon Loader was a normal boy who achieved extraordinary things.

Bibliography The Champions: New Zealand’s Olympic Gold Medallists, by Tony Smith. The Press, Christchurch 2008. New Zealand’s Top 100 Sports History–Makers, by Joseph Romanos. Trio Books Ltd., Wellington 2006. NZ Olympic Committee Study Centre and Website. Oral History recorded in 2009 by Charles Callis, NZOC Museum Curator. Our Olympic Century, by Joseph Romanos. Trio Books Ltd., Wellington 2008. Olympic Legends: The book of New Zealand’s Olympic Medallists, by Paul Verdon. Hill-Verdon Publishing Ltd., Auckland 2006. Personal comment, Danyon Loader. Original text written by Cheryl Maister. Photos courtesy of Getty Images and NZOC Olympic Museum Collection.