Aimee Willmott gets ready for a
training session at the Neptune
Centre in Middlesbrough.
Super
Pool
Gold medallist swimmer
Aimee says she always
loves going back to the
Neptune Centre, where
she first trained.
Tees gold medallist swimmer
Aimee Willmott talks to Tees Life
co-editor Martin Walker…
P I CTUR ES BY MARTI N WA LK E R
22
G
old Coast swimming heroine Aimee Willmott
reckons a 50-metre pool for Teesside could help
unearth future stars of the sport.
The 25-year-old, who won gold at the Commonwealth
Games in Australia earlier this year, has backed an
ambitious bid to develop a top-level pool for the Tees
region.
Community Interest Company (CIC), The Tees Valley
International Aquatic Centre, is leading the campaign
and is raising money to fund an initial study to get the
project off the ground.
And Middlesbrough swimmer Willmott, who had to
trek to Sunderland to access a 50-metre pool during her
developing years, reckons it’s a no-brainer if we want to
nurture future swimming stars.
“When I was training in Middlesbrough, we would go
to Sunderland twice a week, and my parents had to leave work early on a
Wednesday so I could access that facility,” Willmott told me.
“My school were really supportive, too, but if we had a 50-metre pool
on the doorstep it would have made things a lot easier, and we could
have accessed more pool time, and a lot more quality work can get done
in a larger pool.