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Eleanor Walsh Photo Courtesy: better.org.uk<\/p><\/div>\n

The club was founded in 1978 by Eleanor Walsh<\/strong> who had petitioned for the pool to be built with Balmer joining the coaching staff in the mid-1990s after he had moved to the town.<\/p>\n

He works up to 20 hours a week on a voluntary basis alongside his full-time job as operations director at construction company Morgan Sindall having previously worked as commercial director at the Ministry of Defence and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.<\/p>\n

Balmer swam competitively\u00a0 in the north-east of England \u2013 at times battling Dave McNulty<\/strong> who has guided Jo<\/strong> Jackson<\/strong>, Michael Jamieson <\/strong>and Jazz Carlin<\/strong> to the Olympic podium and Kev Renshaw,<\/strong> coach to David<\/strong> Davies<\/strong> when he won Olympic 10k silver in 2008.<\/p>\n

He moved from competing to coaching at 16 at Stockton Aquatics<\/strong> under Dave Bance,<\/strong> working with 1984 Olympians Sam Purvis<\/strong> \u2013 fifth in the 200 fly – and IMer Stuart Willmott<\/strong>, also the father of two-time Olympian and Commonwealth 400IM champion Aimee.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Balmer believes in the power of positive thinking and of aiming high which in turn leads others to do so.<\/p>\n

He told Swimming World:<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t set off in a club believing we\u2019re a small club in the market town of Cockermouth.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou start off believing that there are kids in that pool that can be the best swimmers in the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there\u2019s an attitude thing as well. I\u2019ve got a saying \u2018you get what you tolerate\u2019.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
That is echoed by Greenbank, who said:<\/p>\n
\u201cOne thing that is good is that Sean instils a bit of passion into the swimmers.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery time I go back the kids are all really professional.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey enjoy what they\u2019re doing, they\u2019re having a laugh but they push each other to be the best they can be.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd that was the same when I was there: I had a good group of lads around me who I\u2019m still friends with now and I think we pushed each other a lot more than maybe if it was a smaller group or we were training individually.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
He added with an awareness Balmer would no doubt appreciate:<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is really passionate about the sport: I\u2019ve not worked with many coaches but he is one of the best I\u2019ve worked with.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot just in swimming but he has taught me a lot about the real world.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone at the club is very grateful to have coaches like Sean and Eleanor there to bring the swimmers on and the history they have got at the club exceeds the population of the town and how small the club is.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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