The young athlete said he started taking swimming seriously around the age of 12.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore then, I wasn\u2019t that focused, and I probably wouldn\u2019t have actually kept swimming if it wasn\u2019t for my sisters and my mum, who just pushed me to keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sam Skidmore trains with coach Kirsty Johnson (right) for the Trojan Swim Club. Photo \/ Jack Riddell<\/p>\n
Skidmore swims for Trojan Swim Club, where Kirsty Johnson coaches him.<\/p>\n
Johnson said the club had a rigorous programme set before the age group champs and national selection, and Skidmore had taken it all in his stride.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s always putting up his hand, asking the question, not just listening to the coach, and I think that\u2019s quite valuable with progressing his swimming.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s just well received in the team, especially to our young ones coming through. They look up to ones like Sam and think, that could be me one day. So it\u2019s quite inspirational and we\u2019re very proud of him as a team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Skidmore\u2019s training schedule before the Oceania Championships includes nine 90-minute pool sessions and two gym sessions a week.<\/p>\n
With Hawke\u2019s Bay enduring a cold autumn, he said he was looking forward to competing in the heat of Suva because he hates the cold.<\/p>\n
With the first of his goals ticked off, Skidmore is now eyeing up a scholarship to swim for a university or college in the United States.<\/p>\n
After that, he plans to swim at a \u201creally high level\u201d, with the Olympics or Commonwealth Games in his sights.<\/p>\n
Until then, he has simple advice for any young swimmers looking to follow his wake.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust keep the training going and just don\u2019t give up on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jack Riddell is a multimedia journalist with Hawke\u2019s Bay Today and has worked in radio and media in Britain, Germany, and New Zealand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The young athlete said he started taking swimming seriously around the age of 12. \u201cBefore then, I wasn\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408304,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[21693,1561,682,2841,2566,5267,1976,78,111,139,69,90,13117,18460,58423,1551,210060,213,54978,5163,223,61,810],"class_list":["post-408303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-achieved","tag-bay","tag-being","tag-country","tag-fiji","tag-goal","tag-hawkes","tag-in","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-represent","tag-sam","tag-selected","tag-set","tag-skidmore","tag-sports","tag-swimmer","tag-teen","tag-the","tag-to","tag-up"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}