At the beginning of the week, Canadian Tom Rushton, who was launched to lead Israel's swimming team to the Olympic Games in Paris 2024, landed in Israel, this after last September, the union announced that coach Ehud Segal had asked to leave due to personal reasons.
In recent years, we have trained under Rashton's guidance, world-class male and female swimmers such as Shivon Hohi from Hong Kong - the Olympic runner-up in the 100 and 200 meter freestyle, the world champion in the 25 meter pool (in the 100 and 200 meter freestyle), the world record holder in a 25 meter pool.
The Canadian swimming coach, who thus joined the team that includes the chief consultant David Marsh, will serve as a task coach for the swimmers of the Israeli national team, will be a consultant for the swimming association and will provide further training to the Israeli coaches, and the former swimmer David Gamborg will also work under him.
Already this morning (Wednesday), Rushton arrived at the Wingate pool together with a number of senior swimmers whom he coaches, including Hohi, and conducted a debut training session after which he said: "It's great to be here, we're excited to work here and it's a good experience for everyone. Now we'll be here for six weeks and we'll work hard towards the coming season".
What are you focusing on in the coming year?
"We are currently a year and a half away from the Paris Olympics, so our goal is to focus first of all on this event and achieving the criteria in the various competitions, including the world championship and the test competition, that is our main goal."
How will it work together with Dave Marsh?
"I worked with Dave in the past, we enjoyed working with Anastasia Gorbenko together in September, and I also got to work with other Israeli swimmers who came to train with Marsh, so my experience with the Israelis and the team of the Israeli national team was positive."
About the senior swimmer of Israel Gorbenko and her chance of winning an Olympic medal, he said: "Is Anastasia Gorbenko able to win an Olympic medal in Paris?
I believe she can do it, of course.
You have to work to get there.
Now she will train and swim with the best swimmers.
She swims with Shivon, who is already an Olympic medalist, which is something positive, because she will be able to learn quite a bit from her on the way to Paris, and it will benefit her, in and out of the pool."
Israel has one competitive Olympic pool - what do you say about that?
"The pool here is great, we're only here for one day and that's the only facility we've seen, I hope to walk around a bit and see the other facilities in Israel, but I think there are more facilities here than Estonia."
Rashton and Gorbenko, this morning, photo: Oren Aharoni
Halika: "We managed to bring here swimmers at the highest level in the world"
The one who still came to training is the chairman of the union Miki Halika who said: "We had changes, but we tried to stick to the original plan and give our swimmers what we tried to do in the last four years, which is to train with the best coaches and swimmers in the world and that's why we brought Tom."
Why did you really choose him?
"We had a very large exchange of names. In the situation that was created and according to the commitment to what we wanted - he was the most appropriate and correct. There is a team accompanying the swimmers now, they will be here until the end of February and they will go through a training camp, with the best company."
Skating with Rashton, photo: Oren Aharoni
Now there is a busy year, what is the goal?
"We have the World Championships in Japan, but even a month ago we found out that the World Swimming Federation (FINA) changed the criteria in the relays and we will have to make the adjustments, there is the Universiade - World Youth Championships and we are strong in the matter."
How do they feel about Israel so far?
"They really like the complex here, they like the idea that there is a 50-meter pool with another pool next to it, and they prefer to train in the outdoor pool instead of the closed one. We were able to bring you swimmers at the highest level in the world, which is a huge progress, they will raise the level of our swimmers." .
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