Followers of the career of para swimmer Ollie Carter from Cupar will be pleased to learn that he has settled in to his new life at Stirling University and has finished all of his first term exams. The ex Bell Baxter HS pupil and Carnegie Swimming Club member has completed his course work for the semester. Ollie has settled brilliantly into the university way of life.
Ollie is Fife’s most successful Para swimmer of the past few years. He started his competitive career at Cupar and District SC before moving to Carnegie ASC where he came under the influence of head coach Morag Mitchell. As a member of Carnegie ASC, and with strength and conditioning support from Stuart Bizzarri of Fife Sports and Leisure Trust, Ollie developed into one of the leading Para swimmers in the UK. In his final two years in Fife, Ollie successfully secured lifeguarding and swim teaching qualifications as part of the Young Start programme for coaches and teachers.
Ollie acknowledges his excellent training experiences in Fife but believes he has already made significant progress working under the university coaching team. He believes that his training is a lot less intensive and much more technical and controlled. The structure involves weekly, monthly and quarterly planners with specific distances, sets and goals to achieve throughout. Ollie has always enjoyed training and is thriving on the challenges set by the university team.
Ollie’s strength and conditioning is delivered twice per week through the sportscotland Institute staff team who work very closely with the university swim team. This means that Ollie has the opportunity to carry out his gym work alongside great Scottish and GB internationals like Ross Murdoch and Duncan Scott. Ollie is quick to emphasise that he has felt fully included as a Para sportsman from the moment he set foot in the university.
Ollie’s gym programme is headed by Neil Shanks who liaised with Stuart Bizzarri to ensure a seamless transfer of responsibility and programme content between Fife and the university. Ollie is training with the high performance 2 squad, the second highest squad, and is coached by Josh Williamson. Ollie is delighted to be working with Josh and they have established an excellent relationship. The top high performance 1 squad is coached by Steven Tigg and Brad Hay but the squads and coaching team work very closely and swimmers often end up joining squads and sets. Ollie believes that technically he is already experiencing amazing improvements and his strokes are feeling considerably smoother and more efficient.
Ollie has been active in competitions since arriving at university. In his two representative meets for Stirling university he has performed very well, particularly in relation to the technical changes that have been introduced to his swimming programme. Ollie swam at the British Universities (BUCS) short course meet at Ponds Forge in Sheffield where he competed in 7 events. Ollie swam as a para swimmer and was placed from 3rd to 5th, racking up loads of BUCS points for the team. Ollie swam 50m 100m 400m free, 100m back, 100m breast and 200 IM and managed to PB in a couple of events, outstanding for so early in the season. Ollie’s most notable achievements were recording 64 seconds for 100m fly, for a personal best by 3 seconds and 57.2 for 100m free and a one second PB. Ollie is particularly pleased that this was the first occasion ever that the Stirling men’s team had defeated Loughborough Universities men’s team – the perennial BUCS champions. Ollie was proud to be part of this great Stirling performance.
The second major competition for Ollie was the National Para Championships (long course), where he swam under the Scottish banner, but represented Stirling University. Once again Ollie was pleased in particular with the number of technically strong races he completed. He contested five events: 50m 100m 400m free, 200m IM and 100m fly. Ollie recorded small PBs in 50m free 200m IM but in 100m fly he recorded 66 secs for a two second PB. Ollie was also pleased with his 400m performance where he swam almost the same time as the British Championships last year but with far fewer strokes and a much more efficient technique. Ollie won gold medals in all but 100m fly, missing out on a clean sweep of five golds by 0.3 seconds. As always Ollie was delighted to be part of a strong Scottish team.
Ollie occasionally returns to Fife because he has no training on Saturdays. As an additional leisure activity Ollie has joined the Muay Thai Boxing Club where he has again made lots of new friends. He finds the sport very enjoyable and a pleasant contrast to swimming. So far he has been unable to pursue his lifeguarding and swim teaching skills in Stirling but hopefully next year there may be another chance. Ollie is also pursuing level 2 fitness instructor training and may even achieve the qualification by Christmas. Thereafter Ollie hopes to progress to the Level 3 personal trainer qualification next year.
Ollie’s training finishes for the year on 21st December and then he is back into hard training on 3rd January. Ollie is over the moon that he has recently received news that he has been selected to swim in Geneva along with other outstanding young Scottish Para swimmers Jack Milne, Abby Kane and Toni Shaw. Ollie is also going away with the Stirling swim squad to Holland at some point and he has a four day British Swimming Academy Camp in Manchester in February. In addition Ollie has the World Championship trials in April and the final British meet in the summer.
The young Fife swimmer has an action packed 2019 programme ahead and we admire how far he has progressed from his days with Cupar and District Swimming Club. Tribute is paid to Carnegie ASC for the role played in Ollie’s performance development and to Scottish Swimming for being present throughout his impressive journey to date. Disability Sport Fife pays tribute to the organisations and individuals who have contributed financially to Ollie’s development during the formative years in particular. Scottish Disability Sportrecognised Ollie with a bursary earlier in the year as Scotland’s emerging Para junior. Ollie has been a great servant to Fife as a junior Para swimmer and has achieved an enormous amount at UK level but in his new base at Stirling University he has every chance of stepping up to a higher level in international Para swimming.
Like so many successful young sports people, the role played by parents can never be underestimated. DSF has had the pleasure of working closely with Ollie’s mum over many years. Her contribution to Ollie’s development has been quite exceptional and we congratulate Cath on her critical role in Ollie’s journey to date.
Richard Brickley MBE – President Disability Sport Fife