TT’s Roberts misses coaching Auburn U

TRINIDAD and Tobago missed out on having the entire Auburn University swim team train here, all because of a lack of proper facilities. According to a published interview in Texas, US Olympic coach Dave Marsh said national swim coach Anil Roberts had done such a marvellous job with Zimbabwean Kirsty Coventry, he was thinking of bringing the Auburn team here next summer for him to train. Coventry, a multiple Commonwealth Games medallist earned three medals at the recent Athens, Greece, Olympics.

At a recent function, Piranha Aquatics, the club team which Roberts coaches,  heralded their 2004 achievements and particularly that of George Bovell III. Roberts who was named un precedented back-to-back Top Sporting Personality of the Year, guided Bovell III to a bronze medal in the Olympic Games 200 metres individual medley. Bovell III also broke the world short-course record in his pet 200 metres IM in March this year, and went on to erase eight national marks. And also at the Olympics, Bovell III reclaimed the Commonwealth 200 metres IM record from Ian “Thorpedo” Thorpe at the Pan American Games.

It was while conducting a pre-Olympic camp at Auburn the coaching skills of Roberts were detected. There he imparted his acclaimed knowledge to Pan Am gold medallist Eileen Coparopa, Coventry, Derek Gibb and Frenchmen Freddy Bosquets and Romain Barnier. Roberts came to the fore as a coach when he guided Barbadian swimmer Leah Martindale to become the first black woman to reach an Olympic Games final in 1996. And he followed up by having both Martindale and Piranha Aquatics teammate Siobhan Cropper in the World Short Course final the next year, when the Bajan mermaid became the first Caribbean swimmer to achieve a Commonwealth Games record.