Technique, tempo, training

Time to put your feet up now and call it a day? Not yet. When others are still stepping into their slippers, Ricarda Reitenauer really gets going.

“Use your legs more! And pull !” Ricarda Reitenauer stands at the edge of the pool and shouts instructions at the water. In the evening, when the campaign and communications manager for heat issues leaves her Buttenwiesen office, she does not drive home. Shortly before Augsburg, she turns off to her original hometown of Neusäss. There she is part of the coaching team training one of the two competitive groups in her swimming club. The competitive group involves everything you would imagine: technique, speed and discipline. Her 16 students aged between ten and 17 train five times a week. She herself trains several times a week. But Reitenauer says that her most time-consuming volunteer work is on the association’s board. As sports director, she puts together training timetables, takes on administrative tasks, applies for licences and registrations with the German Swimming Association, coordinates the training of the coaching staff in first aid and lifeguarding, and so on. The Neusäss Swim Team actually has more than a dozen teams, from the elementary group after the first “seahorse” swimming certificate to the amateur athletes without competition ambitions and right up to advanced and competitive groups for the youth section and the masters teams for the adults.

Her work is bearing fruit. “We have significantly expanded the training in the last few years,” Reitenauer tell s us, “which has led to considerable success.” You can hear the pride in her voice. “In the meantime, we are even competing in the South German and German championships. Qualifying alone is something very special for such a small club like us!”

The association has about 130 active members and Reitenauer is the point of contact for all of them. Th is also includes promoting individual talents and the formation and composition of the various teams. There are also difficult times. “We clearly noticed during Covid-19 that really safe swimming is something children only learn when they do it regularly.”

The question of why Reitenauer spends almost all her free time at or in the pool crops up. So: why? “That’s what my friends always ask me.” She laughs. “I’ve been swimming here for as long as I can remember though. I started as an assistant coach when I was 12. The association has just turned 50 years old and I’ve been a member for half of that. It just feels right for me. And I can honestly say, the work with the children is without a doubt fantastic!”

Good, but why the additional role on the board? “I feel connected to the club. And I want to make a diff erence, to push my own ideas.” Like the competition group for the adults. This is a subject close to my heart. “Every club knows only too well: you lose people when they move into professional life. Simply because then they have no opportunity to train. I wanted to change that.” The competition group trains three times a week and competes regularly. “Many former members have come back because of this, even if they no longer live in Neusäss.”

Do you have any free time left over? “Not really,” Ricarda Reitenauer says with a laugh and then – a little quieter: “There is the volleyball as well , though.”