Jim Morris

MONTREAL (CP) - While Canada's divers are waving from the podium during the opening week of the world aquatic championships, the swim team will likely be left in its wake when the swimming competition begins Sunday.

Canada won two gold and a bronze medal in the first three days of the diving competition, tying the country's best-ever performance at the world championships. The swim team will be doing well to put athletes in a handful of finals. Two programs, one basking in success while the other struggles to keep its head above water.

Why ?

One of the easiest answers is success breeds success.

In 20-year-old Alexandre Despatie, gold medallist in Tuesday's three-metre springboard, 23-year-old Blythe Hartley, who blew away the competition in Monday's one-metre, and 23-year-old Emilie Heymans, defending 10-metre world champion, the diving team has a core of young, talented athletes with international experience.

Meaghan Benfeito, 16, and Roseline Filion, 18, who won bronze in the 10-metre synchro dive Sunday, showing the seeds for future success have already been planted.

The common denominator between them is the Montreal Olympic Aquatic Club (CAMO) and coach Michel Larouche.

Most of Canada's best divers train together, under one coach, in a world-class facility at the Claude Robillard Centre in Montreal, a legacy of the 1976 Olympic Games.

Hartley spent the winter at the University of Southern California but took last year off to train at CAMO in preparation for the Athens Olympics.

"I think we have incredible talent," Benoit Seguin, Diving Canada's president, said Wednesday.

"We have outstanding coaches. When the environment is positive and people are performing, it encourages the younger kids coming up to see they can reach those levels."

Swimming Canada doesn't have that luxury.

Canada's swimmers train in clubs scattered across the country, under many coaches, some with different philosophies.

The Olympic medallists the young swimmers used to look up at, the Curtis Mydens, Mark Tewksburys, Marianne Limperts, have all retired. No one has stepped in to replace them.

It's a situation Pierre Lafontaine, Swimming Canada's new chief executive officer, knows must change.

"The divers were horrible not long ago," said Lafontaine. "Now they have a couple of good divers and kids feed on each other.

"You see that in swimming. If there's a good breaststroker in a club, all of a sudden a year later there are eight good breaststrokers in a club. We just need a couple of kids to do that."

The CAMO club is well funded, with federal, provincial and private money. There are trampolines on the pool deck, a ballet teacher, psychologist, nutritionist, orthotherapist (muscle and joint specialist) and a specialist in biomechanics.

"The key is teamwork and here we've created a team with the right people," said Larouche.

The club also has an age-group system to develop young divers.

"If you are part of that club, you see it's possible to perform," said Seguin.

Lafontaine, who spent the last two years as head coach at the Australian Institute of Sport, wants to change how Canadian swimmers are developed.

"We need to get our best swimmers together often in camps," he said. "We need to get our best breaststrokers together, our best (butter)fly swimmers together and run four or five camps a year. They can use each other as a catalyst to get to the next step quickly."

Lafontaine also wants accountability among his coaches.

"Great coaches are committed to excellence and nothing will stop them from reaching excellence," he said. "They don't take no for an answer. They never take 'we don't have enough money' for an answer. They just make things happen."

Lafontaine believes Canada isn't far away from producing great swimmers again.

"Maybe you get a couple of kids that are pretty good and you pull other kids along," he said.

"We do need a huge group of new up-coming 14 and 18-year-olds that are going to push the old guard and make them work for their spots."

Lafontaine and Seguin agree Canada hosting the world championships will be a boost for all water sports.

"It's a great opportunity to aquatics and get young people involved," said Seguin.

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