Adlington legacy just won't last

CALL it coincidence, but Water Meadows in Mansfield was packed yesterday morning after Rebecca Adlington’s Olympic gold medal swim on Monday.
Admittedly, the ‘baths’, as they call them round my way, are significantly busier during the school holidays.
It was also raining outside, so there was not much chance of getting out on the local park with jumpers for goalposts either.
But I can’t remember ever having to queue almost out the door just to get in.
Quite often, when I nip down for my bi-weekly swim, I have a lane all to myself. Or at least there is only one other person lapping me every so often.
This time, I had to share a lane with five or six other people, a whole clutch who I had never seen before (you get to know the same old faces who go all the time).
It could only lead me to thinking that a brilliant 400m freestyle victory in Beijing by Mansfield’s Becky – especially as I heard folks talking about it when I stopped for a rest – had inspired the mad dash to jump in the pool.
With the number of obese in Mansfield and across Notts on the increase, I would love to think I will now have more company on a regular basis.
What would particularly please me is to see more kids diving in at the deep end. Statistics show 12.4% per cent of youngsters starting school in 2006-2007 were overweight.
But while Becky will no doubt act as a superb inspiration for the next generation of swimmers on excellence programmes across Notts, I fear it is not going to lead to a long-term, swimming-related fitness drive.
Like in the aftermath of Wimbledon and the 2005 Ashes, the craze is unlikely to last.
The swimming costumes and goggles will slowly be confined back to the draw, alongside the tennis racquets and cricket bat.

Follow Rebecca Adlington's bid for more glory in the Evening Post