Britain's swimming “golden couple” Sascha and Nyree Kindred faced a new challenge as they trained for the Paralympics — looking after their baby daughter.
Ella was born in June last year and will be attending her parents’ races in the aquatics centre, even if she’s too young to know much about it.
“It has been a challenge,” admitted six times Paralympic champion Sascha. “We have had a lot of support from our local community and our families that has helped us to make sure we can still focus on training but also have time for our daughter.
“It’s been a juggling act, but it’s been an exciting juggling act. From our results, we have proved we have managed to cope with it.”
He added: “I think Ella knows we are swimmers. She [sleeps] 7pm until 6am. I think she has a bit of chlorine in her genes. She will be wearing her Team Kindred T-shirt. It will be nice to look up at that and see her. Hopefully in the future she can say, ‘My mum and dad swam in London and I was there to see it’.”
Nyree, 31, whose nine Paralympic medals include two golds won at Athens in 2004, was credited by swimming star Ellie Simmonds with inspiring her to greatness.
Simmonds said: “I remember watching Athens in 2004 and seeing Nyree Lewis [now Kindred] get her gold medal. That inspired me to want to go to the Paralympics.”
Nyree has an MBE and Sascha, 34, an OBE. They met the Queen and recently sat next to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge at the Royal Albert Hall. “That was an amazing evening,” Sascha said. “Kate has said she would like to do more sport if she can, and they’re going to be at the Paralympics cheering British athletes on.”
He was just 17 when he swam at Atlanta and now, at his fifth Paralympics, will compete in four categories, beginning with the 100 metre breaststroke on Saturday. Nyree’s 100m backstroke heats begin tomorrow. Both have cerebral palsy.
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“I’m still getting quicker, still improving, still breaking records,” Sascha said. “That is the aim for me — to do best times and get on the podium.”
He says the growth in interest in the Paralympics has been astonishing — Atlanta merited only a half-hour TV highlights show.
He says the athletes deserve the greater media coverage. “I train just as hard as Rebecca Adlington or Michael Jamieson. We deserve the recognition.”
