I like the Millennium Institute pool. It is spotlessly clean. It is the best pool I’ve been to anywhere for looking after fitness swimmers and serious athletes. The café is the finest pool café in the country. But best of all the staff are incredible. Every morning the manager cheerfully says, “Gidday, good to see you.” The receptionists seem genuinely pleased to welcome you to the pool. And the life-guards combine their duty to protect lives with customer relations better than in any pool I know.

In fact it is one of those life-guards I want to tell you about. Her name is Annmarie Temo. Like the other Millennium life-guards, most days, she stopped to say hello and ask how Eyad’s training was progressing. She even came to watch Eyad swim in the New Zealand National Short Course Championships and seemed genuinely pleased when he was recently the first Auckland swimmer in the Men’s Super-Final of the 50 metres freestyle Auckland Championship.

But then I noticed something strange. Besides her welcome and general small talk she would occasionally comment on Eyad’s stroke, or the speed of his training. She even suggested some drills that might help improve his freestyle turns. Even more surprising her observations seemed to have merit. What, I thought, does this life-guard know about senior competitive swimming. And then one morning Eyad was doing a long set of 100 meter repetitions. Annmarie walked by and asked, “What speed is he swimming?”

“That last one was in 1.03.” I said.

“Oh, I used to swim backstroke in that time. But my 50s were better,” she replied and wandered off.

Wow, I thought, I’ve never heard of this life-guard and yet she could swim 1.03 for 100 meters backstroke? Who is Annmarie Temo? And so over the course of the next two or three weeks I asked about her career in swimming. I found out she is twenty years old. She did all her swimming in Australia. At eighteen she retired because of the hurt “swimming politics” had caused. Her story sounded genuine. Frequently swimming officials have no idea of the pain they cause.

And then Annmarie came up with another surprise. She explained that she was cutting back her life-guard hours so that she could start university study. “Would it be all right, she asked, “if I swam with Eyad three times a week?”

“Of course,” I said and a week ago Annmarie completed her first training swim in two years.

Good swimmers have something about the way they do things that sets them apart. They have a feel of the water, a way of moving that is different. Good swimmers make it look so incredibly easy; almost lazy. But it’s not lazy, it’s talent. Rhi Jeffrey has it; so do Toni Jeffs, Nichola Chellingworth, Jane Copland, Joe Skuba and Eyad Masoud. And now add a new name to that list. After two strokes quite obviously Annmarie Temo has it; whatever it is. She has it in heaps.

So I decided to investigate. How good was this retired swimming life-guard? The table below shows you what I found. Talk about a real life personification of the Thomas Gray poem.

“Full many a flow’r is born to blush unseen,

And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast

The little tyrant of his fields withstood;

Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,

Some Cromwell guiltless of his country’s blood.”

Check out the numbers.  See what you think. The table shows where Annmarie’s two year old personal best times would rank if they were swum in New Zealand today.

I thought the long course 50 meters backstroke, 100 meters backstroke and 50 meters freestyle all ranking in New Zealand’s top 10 and the 50 meters freestyle being in the top three was especially surprising and especially good. I know Annmarie is determined her new adventure back into swimming will not involve competition and that is fine by me. There is no question about the fun it is to help talented people, even if it is only three times a week. And so I hope she never finds out. But wouldn’t it be great if this fine talent did decide to give it another crack. If she does I won’t have to tell you. She might even make it to the pages of the Swimming New Zealand website. It would not surprise; talent is forever.