"The very best piece of advice I ever got from a coach was to give up soccer and focus back on my swimming..."

Paul Newsome

The Down River Nomad, Rob Hutchings

Today we're joined on the podcast by Ross Davenport - 3-time Olympian, 2-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist, former European record holder and now FINIS international business development manager.

We talk about Ross's childhood as a wannabe soccer star, his break at 12yrs old from swimming and the pivotal moment that saw him return to the pool fully committed and ready for action.

Interestingly enough, former podcast superstars Rebecca Adlington and David Davies have also had similar hiatus periods in their adolescent years only to return more fired up than ever. Ross's interview is a great one to listen to with your kids in this regard as there are some excellent life and moral stories to be gained.

As Ross discusses right at the start of the show, Paul was Ross's key referee for landing his role with FINIS, a position in which Ross has been in for over 8 years now. Ross's passion and enthusiasm for swimming really shone through when Paul first met Ross at the Loughborough University in 2013, shortly after Ross had retired from competitive swimming.

During that meeting as part of one of the Swim Smooth 3-day Coach Education Courses, Ross blistered through an amazing 100m kicking set in well under 1:05! Crazy. The coaches loved it!

From there, FINIS CEO, John Mix, was looking for someone who understood swimming and the company's training aids and Ross was Paul's obvious first choice for the role. After a trip over to California for the interview, John was suitably impressed and the rest, as they say, is history.

We hope you enjoy!

Paul
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