She may have competed decades before they were born but one of the world’s greatest Olympians, Dawn Fraser, had plenty of encouraging words for schoolchildren in Wollongong on Friday.
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Fraser was the special guest of Illawarra Women in Business (IWIB) at the City Beach Function Centre.
She was impressed with the youngsters’ questions before the event and during question time, and provided a motivational answer when one of the children asked her the key to winning gold in swimming.
‘‘The key to success at school, business or anything you do today is to study and plan what you want to do, where you want to do it and how you want to do it,’’ Fraser said.
‘‘And I think it goes back to how, why and when. You have got to do that.’’
Each year Fraser made herself a set of goals to achieve and break.
And that included her first major one which was to break a 20-year-old world record.
She trained for three hours in the morning, an hour at lunchtime and then four hours in the afternoon.
‘‘I was doing double the amount of work that any other swimmer was doing,’’ she said.
‘‘But I planned it that way because in those four years I knew where I wanted to do go. Every year I made sure I was swimming close to my world record or breaking it. And that is the key to success. Planning and training hard. And it is the same with homework.’’
Fraser was impressed by all the children from St Brigid’s and TIGS.
‘‘It is lovely to see young children know who I am,’’ she said.
‘‘I do a lot with children. It gives me the opportunity... to try and motivate them.’’
Fraser mentors many young Australian swimmers.
And she sees the Dolphins winning a bag of medals at the World Championships in early August.
She mentors Jordan Mercer and said Illawarra swimmers Emma and David McKeon had proven their potential and would go on to bigger and better things. David will compete in the 200 and 400 metres freestyle and Emma in the 100 metres butterfly, 200 metres freestyle and three relays in Russia.
‘‘I think they will go very well,’’ Fraser said.
‘‘I think the World Championships in Russia next month will give them a good showing for Rio.’’
Fraser recalled spending plenty of time in the Illawarra because of her good friendship with the late Bev Whitfield, of Shellharbour.
‘‘I used to come down here a fair bit and we used to go surfing,’’ she said.