“Learn to swim” project: Interview with Christian Tröger – Sport

SZ: Mr. Tröger, when did you actually learn to swim?

Christian Tröger: At the age of three and a half, that was fortunate because my parents have a pool on their property. So I was confronted with the medium of water in a positive sense. My sister, who was two and a half years older, could already swim, and what does the little brother do? hops behind. My father and my mother come from swimming, my father had a world best time and only didn’t come to the 1960 Olympics because of a bad breastbone technique, that’s a bit of a trauma for him. My mother was a high diver and runner-up student world champion there. How should I have become a footballer or a tennis player when I was pre-embossed?

What is fascinating about this sport?

This almost weightless floating in the water. And the feeling of being able to turn any pressure you exert into propulsion. Ideally, you don’t swim against the water, but with it.

At the same time, everyone must be able to swim.

The other way around: It is life-threatening if you cannot do it. Swimming is not a luxury, but – in contrast to, say, football, skiing or paragliding – something essential that you absolutely need in life alongside reading and writing. It used to be more firmly anchored than it is today, characteristically there was a saying in ancient Rome: ‘He who can read and swim is intelligent’.

Fewer and fewer children can swim today. Why?

Many want, but cannot. First, there is the financial issue. A ten-hour swimming course costs between 200 and 250 euros in Munich and the surrounding area. For many not-so-rich families, this is a hurdle. Second, there is too little supply for too much demand. Our courses were already full before Corona, but back then there weren’t such long waiting times. We have established the “First come, first serve” system, it couldn’t be fairer. But now we have the problem that we could now fill our courses three to five times due to Corona. And this overhang meets too little water surface. The swimming pools have limited opening hours, we compete with senior swimming, aqua gymnastics, recreational swimming, club swimming. In addition, the school pools can usually no longer be rented after 2 or 3 p.m., at least for external providers. And: There is a lack of trainers who support us competently and enthusiastically.

Is the job too unattractive for potential coaches?

Pay is an issue. A swimming school has to pay the trainer, the water area, the logistics behind it. And the course should also be affordable for the participants. If I offer a course for 400 euros, then we have the social gap again, the children from better parts of the city do it, those from poorer parts tend not to. One cannot therefore promise the trainers exorbitant hourly rates. The second: It’s not a 9-to-5 job, we’re limited in time. For a trainer, however, it makes no sense to drive from Moosach to Grünwald and back for an hour or two of training.

How long does coaching training take?

Strictly speaking, swimming coach is not a protected job title. In fact, it all depends on what the candidate brings with them. The basic requirement: He must be able to swim. A first aid certificate would also be important. Then he should fit into the team and be able to convey the content positively and simply. But 20 to 30 hours of training is a realistic amount of time. We don’t need academics, but people who can speak in pictures and analogies and nice comparisons, especially when it comes to children. And who can live with an hourly wage of around 20 to 25 euros. There is also a good deal of idealism involved.

What is your advice to families who are on long waiting lists in the big city? Teach yourself? Go into the water as often as possible, even in winter?

As well as. We have decided against working with waiting lists. Also because I don’t think it’s serious when the mother of a four-year-old calls us to say yes, when he turns six, we might have a place free. As a parent, you should also be persistent and keep calling. Children sometimes drop out of the course, others can slide down. Of course it is also very difficult to find the right swimming school. We’ve been doing this here in the south of Munich for more than 20 years, a lot of it works through word of mouth. But it is also a matter of trust to hand my child over to someone in a medium that is new territory and not entirely harmless.

Couldn’t that work much better in Munich, for example with a traffic light that shows free and occupied courses, also in cooperation with private providers?

It makes sense to orchestrate that. If the city, despite its problems with digitization and networking, could come to the point of saying, okay, there will be a swimming course here in four weeks and there are still places available, that would be wonderful. Certainly, swimming should be promoted even more in schools and not primarily by private providers. It’s a structural problem. Support from the state and from the school could take much more pressure off the whole thing. A lot more horsepower could be brought onto the road across the board.

Open detailed view

There is the Munich swimming offensive and other efforts.

The state government has also started a wonderful initiative where they give 50 euros to all children who take a seahorse course. But the administrative effort was very high, and there’s no point in fueling an already high demand if I can’t already offer enough courses due to a lack of trainers and a lack of water. This is not how the advance is thought to end.

And now there is the energy crisis.

This is another amp. Some pool operators say: We close completely or open later or reduce the temperature. So there is even less water surface for the children who are already waiting for their course. And if a four-year-old with zero percent body fat climbs into the pool, which has 24 degrees, he’ll be frozen through after fifteen minutes. The pool does not have to be 32 degrees warm, 27, 28 degrees is quite good for children. But such trembling little creatures that freeze to the edge of the pool with blue lips – that pulls everyone’s last stopper.

A child made the seahorse. Can it swim?

Yes, but reasonably stable only under ideal-typical conditions. The other way around: A child who has made the seahorse goes into a lake or the sea, 18 to 20 degrees, there are waves, the bottom is slippery. Then at the latest it becomes critical. The seahorse is a good framework, but you shouldn’t feel safe with it, let alone lie down in a deck chair as parents. With the bronze badge the child should be able to swim stably enough that as a parent I wouldn’t worry too much. By the way: our daughter didn’t manage her seahorse badge in the first round either – but that’s also an experience on the way to becoming a safe swimmer. She now swims in the second competition team of SV Ottobrunn.

Do you often think back to the old days yourself?

Again and again. The first Olympic medal was a highlight, also because we didn’t expect it. It was the first medal of the entire German Olympic team, and the attention of 20,000 spectators in the stands and the media presence is something you don’t often experience as a representative of a media fringe sport. At the same time, I’m glad that I no longer have to go into the water 13 times a week for training. But this element is still my elixir of life.