Danish National Team head coach Nick Juba on Monday will take a squad of 16 of Denmark’s best swimmers to a 12-day training camp in Pretoria, South Africa at the High Performance Training Centre there.
According to Danish site svoem.dk, whose Anna Birkbak did an interview with Juba about the camp, the goal is largely about ‘feeling good’ and so that Denmark’s best swimmers can “escape from the Dreary North European Weather and long dark nights, and train open-air in the sunshine.”
The forecast for this coming week has highs in Copenhagen, the Danish capital, in the mid 40’s with light rain, and in Pretoria the weather is expecting highs in the mid-80’s, with only slight chances of rain. The sun is also rising about three hours earlier in Pretoria than Copenhagen, meaning more daylight and theoretically a superior mental outlook for some tough training.
The 16 swimmers include many of Denmark’s elites, including European Record holder Mie Nielsen and her young sprint partner Pernille Blume. The roster also includes about half of the men named to the “Great Danes” program, designed around raising the level of male swimming performances in the country.
Pretoria, as the home base of South Africa’s Players Club, is becoming a new hot-spot of South African swimming. Among the swimmers that train out of Pretoria are Cameron van der Burgh and Giulio Zorzi, who both medaled at the World Championships. The city is also home to TUKS, another large South African club.
The full roster, including coaches, can be seen below.
| Anton Ørskov Ipsen | Sigma Swim Birkeroed |
| Chris Boe Christensen | Holstebro Swim Club |
| Christina Munkholm Henriksen | Køge Svømmeklub |
| Daniel Skaaning | STT / VAT CPH / NTC |
| Daniel Steen Andersen | Horsens Swim Club / NTC |
| Julie Aglund Lauridsen | Sigam Swim Allerød / NTC |
| Julie Larsen Levisen | Aalborg Svømmeklub |
| Katrine Holm Sorensen | Esbjerg Swim Club / NTC |
| Kelly Terry Riber Rasmussen | Lyngby Swim Club / NTC |
| Line Jørgensen Bruun | Aalborg Svømmeklub |
| Magnus Jákupsson | Sigma Swim Allerød / NTC |
| Magnus Ekberg Westermann | Herlev Swimming |
| Mie Østergaard Nielsen | Aalborg Svømmeklub |
| Pernille Blume | Sigma Swim Brikerød / NTC |
| Sarah Wirgant Bro | Lyngby Swim Club / NTC |
| Viktor Ferns Bromer | Aalborg Svømmeklub |
| Nicholas Juba | Coach |
| Jon Langenberg | Club Coach A6 |
| Stefan Hansen | NTC coach |
| Eyleifur Isaac Jóhannesson | Club Coach Aalborg Svømmeklub |
This seems to make more sense than taking the juniors team to a ski resort area and then letting them ski in the afternoon. Given that swimmers not named Ryan Lochte as a population seem to have a tendency to injure themselves as a population when tripping over a sidewalk crack, I rather wondered about encouraging your elite athlete pool to do a sport where it’s quite easy to blow out a knee or ankle.
Hope they don’t learn to cheat from Cameron. Have a great trip.
International teams stay and train at the High Performance Center in Pretoria. This facility is associated with TUKS swim team (Suzaan van Biljon, Lisa Marie retief, Roland schoeman, Karin Prinsloo etc) the High Performance center is in no way associated with the players club in Pretoria.
Tuks and HPC have served as hosts for Danish, Dutch, French and British teams amongst others.
Peter – we didn’t say that it was related to the Players Club. We simply said that the city was home to the Players Club, and a hot bed for South African swimming.