When Ben Smith was offered the chance to become a local swimming coach, he snapped it up.

It was, he says, his way of giving something back to a programme which had provided so many opportunities for himself.

And ironically, when he took over the senior coach's post at the Sharks club, he replaced the man who had first coached him as a 10-year-old - Martin Allen.

"He (Allen) founded the club and coached them for 20 years and stepped down last year," said Smith, paying tribute to the veteran coach's contribution to local swimming.

"I learned a lot from coaches like Martin Allen and Gareth Davies."

Smith, whose specialities were the 100 metres butterfly and 50 metres freestyle, now coaches some 100 young swimmers at Sharks, ranging in age from seven to 17. They train three times a week at the Warwick Academy pool, the best of the talent then graduating to the national programme.

"It's actually a very rewarding experience, we really have a good group of kids and they have excelled beyond what even I was thinking they could do," said Smith.

"We've had an excellent season this year. The last meet will be on November 24."

Some of the brightest stars at the club include 14-year-olds Flora Duffy, Geoffrey Smith and his nephew Dominique Nanette, all emerging young triathletes. Even younger, but also promising, are the likes of Nicholas Thompson and Rebecca Sharpe in the eight-and-under and nine to 10 age groups.

"They are all doing very well in swimming and also excelling in triathlon," said Smith. "There is a lot of training and a lot of time that they have to put in. It's a lifestyle because you can learn how to swim now and can swim for the rest of your life. It's not something that is going to leave you."

And while swimmers generally start young, as early as six or seven and stop competing in their 20s, usually after finishing college, Smith says it doesn't have to be a sport only for the younger person.

"That was the belief but if you looked at the last Olympics a lot of the swimmers that won were actually in their 30s," said Smith, now 28 but having retired from competition about five years ago.

"It was my last year in college and I injured my shoulder and when I came back from school I started helping out with Martin Allen on deck. I started showing up every day and that's how it started," he recalled.

Some of his peers such as Jenny Smatt, Ian Raynor and Chris Flook are also no longer competing.

"It used to be believed that the guys would finish in their early 20s and the girls in their teens. One of the things I'm trying to do with my team is to keep the kids in the sport through their teenage years. "We lose a lot of kids when they turn 14, 15 but I want to keep them involved in the sport into their teen years so that they can go away to college and compete on college teams. It's a good discipline to keep them involved in.

"Definitely in Bermuda we tend to finish younger. The opportunities to take it further are not as great here, we don't have a 50-metre pool for the kids to compete in which puts us at a disadvantage. Until we can train on a regular basis in a 50-metre pool then even the kids who are showing a lot of potential like Roy-Allen Burch are not going to fulfil that potential because we don't have the facilities."

Smith would like to see more former swimmers come out and give something back to the four swim clubs who, between them, have about 300 youngsters.

"One of the problems we're having is finding people who are willing to coach," said Smith, who is assisted by Miriam Smith.

"It's a lot of time you have to put in, you're giving up a lot of days a week, there is a lot of preparation and you have to be there on a consistent basis. To me, the only people who are going to be willing to put in that time is somebody who actually swam and knows the kind of commitment that you need to put into it.

"We do have a lot of people who have come through the swimming programme who have a lot of knowledge that they can pass onto the kids coming up. My nephew is one of the swimmers and I was going there to see him swim and that's how I became involved."

Smith also wants to dispel the myth that swimming is predominantly a white sport, saying that the swimming programme has a good racial mix.

"It's probably a better mix now than it was," says Smith who also spent a lot of time around the water as he helped coach the White's Island swim programme and served as a lifeguard at John Smith's Bay and Horseshoe Bay.

He was also captain of his college team and competed on the national team for about seven years.

"Swimming on the world scene is usually seen as not racially mixed but in Bermuda it is more of a mixed sport. The thing is, living on an Island like we are everybody should be able to swim.

"Barbara Waldo, swimming director at BASA, along with with Miriam, has done a lot of work in the schools, getting the swimming programmes put together and getting a lot of the kids from the schools that haven't had access to swimming to come to BASA pool and train. As a result a lot more people are getting interested.

"My philosophy is to have a good mix between making it fun and hard work and hopefully that is going to keep the kids in the sport as long as possible.

"I think the future is very bright for Bermuda swimming. I would like to see more people getting involved. Kids running track and doing other sports already have a fitness base and if they did swimming and cycling then they could do triathlon.

And while most swimmers start very young, those beginning in their teens still have an opportunity to excel.

"Chris Flook started very late and within a year was breaking national records, so it's possible," Smith stressed.