THE competitive future of Cork's outstanding prospect, Lee Kelleher, has been put in jeopardy following recent indications that she is to return to her native city from Millfield school in England.
The immediate problem for her would be a shortage of pool time at the already crowded short course venues in the city. It is a situation that would seriously militate against Kelleher's prospects of maintaining the standards she has worked so diligently to achieve in England.
She is currently coming to the end of a one year partial scholarship at Millfield. Unless a new deal can be arranged for Kelleher at Millfield, where annual fees for a boarder are close to £13,000, the Cork swimmer will be forced back into the limited swimming resources of her native city.
Eddie Campion, a former IASA president, yesterday made a plea to Cork Corporation to afford Kelleher special consideration: "She is such a fine prospect that it would not be asking a lot for Lee to be allocated a lane at one of the Cork pools to meet her daily training requirements," he said.
The local authorities in Cork may yet take example from their counterparts in Kilkenny who have welcomed the opportunity to provide Michelle Smith with a private lane.
Smith uses the facility for two hours each day. It is all the time she needs at present before contemplating on cranking her schedule up a gear.
If Cork is to become Kelleher's home base between now and the Sydney Olympics and her standards are improved she will need all the encouragement she can find. Normally, Kelleher could expect just one hour of uninterrupted club training per day with her City of Cork club at the Douglas pool.
Meanwhile, Kelleher, who returned to Millfield on Monday after competing in the Mulhouse international meet in France at the weekend, has decided against competing in this weekend's Munster Age Group finals at the Douglas pool.
Her Ulster peers on the elite squad, Claire Nixon, Karen Marshall and Michael Williamson will be staking their claims, with justifiable confidence, on the corresponding titles at the Grove Baths, Belfast.
The fifth national swimming seminar is fixed for April 27th in Dublin. The speakers will include John Treacy, chairperson of the Sports Council, Pat Duffy, director of the national coaching and training centre, psychology lecturer Dr Aidan Moran and Professor Keith Buchanan of Queens University.
Subjects to be given an airing include the sports strategy report, code of ethics and good practice in children's sport, concentration skills, pulse monitoring and current stroke law.
