Draft: Nerves of Neethling (Part 1)

Nerves of Neethling

Many of us, when we think of swimming, have sunny memories, touched with globs of ice-cream, smears of sun block and watermelon smiles. Swimming and childhood are mixed together, like silver bubbles in chlorine clear water. But for professional swimmers, a swimming pool is quite different. It’s cold and hard. There are lines on the bottom of the pool that they see in their dreams. It’s living and breathing in the sterile light of a bathroom (especially in winter), silver surfaces everywhere, for hours on end. Above all it is about endurance. Enduring the cold and coming out smiling and strong. What are the rewards? Jean Marie Neethling provides some insight into what it takes to become a fish.

By Nick van der Leek

Jean Marie ushers me into a sunny room. There’s a lot of blue in the room, and Jean Marie herself is wearing blue jeans and a blue Billabong jersey. I’m surprised to see Ryk’s face flash at me through hers. I sit in a sunbeam and fumble in my bag for a tape recorder while a green parrot starts climbing up the white sleeve of my tracksuit.
I press RECORD and the red light illuminates.

“What was your idea of swimming, before Ryk came back?”
“I got used to swimming while I was younger. He (Ryk) would be at the pool (at a gala) every Saturday. I just watched him swim, and it seemed like a big deal because he was very serious. If he didn’t swim well he’d be in a bad mood, and he was tired most of the time. There was a lot of dedication. He didn’t really go out that much. But I was very young so I could understand that he was in America for swimming. That was my idea of swimming.”
“Was your perception of swimming negative then?”
“Well, I was six when he went to the states. And I realized he was taken away from us because of the swimming. But it was my brother that made me swim.”
“Was that before he’d had a breakthrough with his swimming? I mean, did he achieve some success and then say, ‘C’mon, you also need to start swimming.’”
“No, he just loves swimming. I can’t think that anyone loves swimming more than him. He loves everything about swimming. I think he just wanted me to love it as well.”
“Because I know he went through a–”
“A dip. In 2000. That was actually the time he told me. I was 9 or 10 years old. It was just after Sydney [Olympics]. He thought that was going to be his breakthrough but then he came 8th. So he stopped swimming for 9 months, and gave his gear away. But he always said, ‘I don’t want to grow old and say ‘what if? What if I could have made it to the next Olympics?’”

To be continued