{"id":15849,"date":"2019-09-16T18:14:24","date_gmt":"2019-09-16T10:14:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.arenaswimclub.com.au\/?p=15849"},"modified":"2019-09-17T11:23:28","modified_gmt":"2019-09-17T03:23:28","slug":"congratulations-ben-popham-and-coach-simon-redmond-arena-swim-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.arenaswimclub.com.au\/?p=15849","title":{"rendered":"Congratulations Ben Popham and Coach Simon Redmond – Arena Swim Club"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Congratulations Ben Popham and Coach Simon Redmond – Team Arena<\/strong>

Smiling\u201d Ben Popham\u00a0gives Dolphins a silver start to Para Worlds<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Ian Hanson<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Australia has begun its 2019 World Para Swimming Championship campaign with a silver lining \u2013 winning two silvers and a bronze medal on a record-breaking night at the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Pool in London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WA\u2019s Ben Popham wasted no time in one of the early events when he realised a dream come true, winning Australia\u2019s first medal \u2013 a stunning silver in the S8, 100 metres freestyle final as world records tumbled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 19-year-old from Perth\u2019s Arena Swim Club, where he is coached by WA\u2019s Olympic and Hall of Fame coach Simon Redmond, clocked a personal best time of 57.89 to finish just a touch behind Rio Paralympic gold medallist from Greece Dimosthenis Michalentzakis (57.69).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bronze medal went to China\u2019s Guanglong Yang (58.89).
\u201cStill smiling\u2026..\u201d said Popham when asked how he was feeling hours after his stunning silver medal performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elated with his result, the podium finish and a personal best time it was still sinking in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI feel incredible, I really found out what I could improve on in the heats and I nailed exactly that, I went out a little bit harder but came home just as strong \u2013 I\u2019m stoked, absolutely stoked,\u201d he told Swimming Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t expecting to do a PB, I was hoping for a 58 mid which has turned into a 57 high, so I\u2019m really surprised and probably in shock a little bit.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Cerebral Palsy (CP) sufferer who started swimming at the age of seven as part of his physiotherapy treatment burst onto the international stage with a two-gold medal debut at last year\u2019s Para Pan Pacs in Cairns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But another 12 months under Redmond\u2019s astute coaching and Popham has continued his climb up the international swimming calendar, with next year\u2019s 2020 Paralympics now very much on the sporting horizon for the Curtin University Bachelor of Commerce student.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Redmond, the founder of the Fremantle Port Swim club back in 1996, is the man who steered medley star Lara Carroll to an Olympic final in the 200IM in Athens in 2004 and World Short Course medals, also in 2004 and the Commonwealth Games in 2006.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Congratulations Ben Popham and Coach Simon Redmond – Team Arena Smiling\u201d Ben Popham\u00a0gives Dolphins a silver start to Para Worlds By Ian Hanson Australia has begun its 2019 World Para Swimming Championship campaign with a silver lining \u2013 winning two silvers and a bronze medal […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arenaswimclub.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arenaswimclub.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arenaswimclub.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arenaswimclub.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arenaswimclub.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15849"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.arenaswimclub.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15859,"href":"https:\/\/www.arenaswimclub.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15849\/revisions\/15859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arenaswimclub.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arenaswimclub.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arenaswimclub.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}