Paolo has swims 29 and 30 to complete on Friday 27th and Saturday 28th November, so please give him some love and support on his Instagram page or if you happen to be in Dubai at some point in the future, check out - he'd love to see you! Today we speak with a super inspirational athlete and coach, Swim Smooth Coach Paolo Mangilinan, who's based in Dubai, UAE.Īs part of the annual Dubai Fitness Challenge - which seeks to encourage people to partake in 30 minutes of exercise every day for 30 days - Paolo decided to take it upon himself to swim 10km in the open water around the world famous and tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa, every day for 30 days in November! Yes, that's significantly more distance than many of you might cycle or run in a month, and Paolo is swimming it, unaided, without a wetsuit, flippers, pull buoy or paddles and has so far backed up every day at an average pace of 1:30/100m! Insane! Listen to the podcast to hear what makes Paolo tick, what inspired him and who he hopes to inspire as part of this conquest, the highs and the lows and how he's drawn strength from those around him whom he coaches to make it through this arduous task! After a trip over to California for the interview, John was suitably impressed and the rest, as they say, is history. The coaches loved it! From there, FINIS CEO, John Mix, was looking for someone who understood swimming and the company's training aids and Ross was Paul's obvious first choice for the role. During that meeting as part of one of the Swim Smooth 3-day Coach Education Courses, Ross blistered through an amazing 100m kicking set in well under 1:05! Crazy. Ross's passion and enthusiasm for swimming really shone through when Paul first met Ross at the Loughborough University in 2013, shortly after Ross had retired from competitive swimming. Ross's interview is a great one to listen to with your kids in this regard as there are some excellent life and moral stories to be gained.Īs Ross discusses right at the start of the show, Paul was Ross's key referee for landing his role with FINIS, a position in which Ross has been in for over 8 years now.

Interestingly enough, former podcast superstars Rebecca Adlington and David Davies have also have similar hiatus periods in their adolescent years only to return more fired up than ever. We talk about Ross's childhood as a wannabe soccer star, his break at 12yrs old from swimming and the pivotal moment that saw him return to the pool fully committed and ready for action.

Today we're joined by Ross Davenport - 3-time Olympian, 2-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist, former European record holder and now FINIS international business development manager.

Swim Smooth by Paul Newsome