He’s taught hundreds of Blayney kids how to swim, and now Les Hopkins will be carrying the Commonwealth Games baton through a section of Orange in the lead-up to the games.
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Hopkins was selected as one of eighteen baton bearers, who will each take a 200 metre leg of the relay, and hail from Orange, Bathurst, Blayney and other centres.
Before CentrePoint was covered and heated, Hopkins coached swimmers in Blayney and was one of four coaches on the NSW Country team.
‘At the time, when the old outdoor pool at Blayney closed, Blayney was one of the largest swimming clubs this side of Penrith,” he said.
“We had the most state and national qualifiers in the region and we even produced a 2000 Olympian in Caroline Hildreth.”
Nominated by his son Ben, Hopkins said that the world of Australian swimming had changed a lot since he represented Australia in the 1974 inaugural New Zealand Games.
“Those games were the precursor to the world championships and if you were 17 and a good swimmer back in the seventies, you had to go to the USA if you wanted to continue,” he said.
On January 30 Hopkins and the 17 other athletes will be grabbing a hold of the baton and running their 200 metres through Orange.
“It will certainly be something to remember,” he said.
“I suppose I’ll just take my time and enjoy the moment.”
Mark Logan
Started working in newspapers in the 1990's in the darkroom of the Pastoral Times in Deniliquin before moving to Millthorpe in 2003. Soon after arriving I started as a photographer at the CWD. Now a journalist at the Blayney Chronicle.
Started working in newspapers in the 1990's in the darkroom of the Pastoral Times in Deniliquin before moving to Millthorpe in 2003. Soon after arriving I started as a photographer at the CWD. Now a journalist at the Blayney Chronicle.
