PRETORIA, South Africa, May 25. OLYMPIC gold medalist and world record holder Ryk Neethling is currently still enjoying a break from training. But when he dives back into the pool to return to the hard slog, it will be in Pretoria. Neethling revealed that he will be moving from Johannesburg (where he has been training at Ellis Park) to Swimming South Africa\u2019s National Training Centre (NTC)in Pretoria, where he will be putting in the hours under the watchful eye of SSA\u2019s national coaching director Dirk Lange.<\/p>\n
\u201cDirk and I work very well together,\u201d explained Neethling. \u201cAfter the Commonwealth Games it would have been easy to say it wasn\u2019t worth going to the World Short Course Championships in Shanghai because I wasn\u2019t so into it or whatever but Dirk really kept me focused and helped me to give it 100 percent.<\/p>\n
Neethling said that the facilities at the NTC were a real draw-card and that the setup there is as close as South Africa comes to reproducing the environment he experienced as part of the college swimming program at the University of Arizona, where he trained for eight years.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Joburg I spent a lot of energy trying to keep on that professional level but that will be much easier in Pretoria when I will be surrounded by people who are striving for the same thing as I am,\u201d he said. \u201cIn Sandton, where I was staying, I think people are more concerned with drinking coffee and looking good. And while I\u2019ll miss living in Joburg, the Olympics are only two years away and that goes by in the blink of an eye, so this is what needs to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neethling said he had been especially impressed by Pretoria-based former world junior 400m hurdles champion LJ van Zyl who raced to glory on the track at the Commonwealth Games in March. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think he is one of the biggest up-and-coming stars we have in this country,\u201d Neethling said. \u201cHis attitude, confidence and competitiveness really impressed me and I am so looking forward to being surrounded by people like him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neethling said he plans to resume training at the beginning of July and his first competition will be in August at a short course meet in Germany. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no rush for me. I want to do this right and so my next major competition will only be the World Championships in March next year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PRETORIA, South Africa, May 25. OLYMPIC gold medalist and world record holder Ryk Neethling is currently still enjoying a break from training. But when he dives back into the pool<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world","category-zzzzzzzzz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n