Quality time in the water
OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALISTS INSPIRE HOPEFULS
By Barbara Isaacs
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
(LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY) -- For Nikki Southall and Derry Delventhal and 59 other young swimmers, it was a chance to touch Olympic gold medals and refine their strokes with two men who earned them.
Yesterday the Beaumont Centre Family YMCA hosted a swimming clinic featuring Josh Davis and Mark Gangloff, who both earned gold medals in the Olympic Games. The event, the Mutual of Omaha Breakout! Swim Clinic, will travel to 70 cities this year.
Davis, 34, won three gold medals at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta and won two silver medals at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. Gangloff, 24, won a gold medal at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece.
"I think they're excited," Lisa Dattilio, the head swim team coach at the Beaumont YMCA, said of the young swimmers who participated. "It's a chance to touch and feel and see a gold medal. ... We hope it will spark something for the kids."
Before the event began, the swimmers signed autographs and posed for pictures with the young swimmers. The clinic cost $50 per participant for the intensive four-hour session.
Then, at poolside, Davis and Gangloff gave a brief motivational talk before jumping in the pool to give hands-on feedback as the young swimmers did the freestyle, butterfly, backstroke and breaststroke.
Gangloff told the group that he was 12 years old when an Olympian visited his swimming club. It was Mike Barrowman, a breaststroker who won Olympic gold in 1992. "He said, 'Someone from this club could win Olympic gold.' "
Gangloff said he hoped that their visit would also inspire strong dedication to swimming.
"I want you to really start dreaming big," Gangloff said. "Anything you want to do in life is possible."
Davis told the kids that it's cool to go to the Olympics because "you get lots of free stuff." The kids chuckled at that.
But he said the best part of the Olympics was seeing how proud his parents were of him -- both at events where he won the gold and even when he finished in fourth place. "I really believe the most powerful force in the universe is unconditional love," he said.
"To have this come to a Y here is pretty impressive," said Marianne Delventhal, mother of 12-year-old swimmer Derry Delventhal, who, like most of the attendees, competes on the Beaumont Y Barracudas swim team. Delventhal said the event was perfect for her daughter, who wrote a poem at 10 picturing herself winning a gold medal.
It was a similar story with Nikki Southall, 8. "Her dream is to be an Olympic swimmer," said Jackie Wagoner, Nikki's mother. "To touch and see a medal definitely motivates a child."
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