JO WINBERG is leaving the Guernsey Swimming Club in acrimonious circumstances. Winberg (pictured) has been the coach of the club for the last five years but is set to leave the post at the end of the season in August.
She declined to go into the details of why she is leaving, saying only ‘politics’, but it is clear that she is bitterly disappointed.
‘I’m going to deeply miss the swimmers,’ she said. ‘It’s going to be a big void in my life. I handed in my resignation hoping that the committee would come to me and say, let’s look at this, but they haven’t. The committee seem to want to go backwards. I’ve tried so hard to raise the profile of the club.’
Winberg divulged one reason why she is going and that is the club has deemed it no longer necessary for her to go on away trips with the swimmers she coaches. Instead parents are in charge. ‘I can’t go away and watch them compete,’ she said. ‘The committee took upon themselves to change my job description. It’s like telling Steve Ogier that he can’t go away with the island football team. There won’t be a coach there. There will be a parent.’
Word has been going around that a major bone of contention with the GSC was that Winberg’s son, Luke, a talented junior swimmer, had moved to the Beau Sejour Barracudas.
According to Winberg there was no ulterior motive behind the move.
It had become impossible to coach him as they were frequently arguing during training.
‘You ask anyone – if you coach your own child it’s a nightmare,’ she said.
‘My two other children will stay at the Guernsey Swimming Club.’
She also denied that she is following her son to join the Barracudas.
‘I don’t know what I’m going to do,’ she said.
The president of the GSC, Jo Norman, declined to comment before the club’s committee could meet to discuss the matter.
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