March 28, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Palmer, Maine swimmers had memorable trip to Russia

“The Russian people, without a doubt, are the most gracious people I’ve ever met. We came home with anywhere from 100-200 gifts; and they don’t have it. If they had something on their wall they cherished, they would take it down and give it to you.”

Old Town-Orono YMCA swim coach Norm Palmer said the eight swimmers he and Ellen Newton of Boothbay Harbor took to the Soviet Union with translator Chris Beattie of Meredith, N.H., agreed they would go back anytime.

“The day we left the airport was something else,” Palmer said with obvious emotion. “Everyone of our swimmers, and everyone in the airport, was crying.”

The eight swimmers making the trip, through the YMCA and Bridges for Peace, were Amy Walls, Bangor; Nellie Fox, Mount Desert Island; Carrie Swan, Portland; Tammy Campbell, Abe Newton, and Chris Williams, Boothbay; Scot Bloemen, Old Town; and Daryl Morse, Bath. They competed in a three-day invitational with swimmers from Germany, Finland, and the Soviet Union. The Maine girls finished third.

“We swam against 10 Russian teams with some unbelievable swimmers,” Palmer said. One was among the Soviet Union’s top three, and others had finished among the top three in the World and Goodwill Games. The meet was held in a 50-meter, Olympic-sized pool in Skytyvkar, a city with 26 pools.

Following the meet, the host coach invited the group to train with his team for the remainder of the visit. The travelers left Maine on Dec. 11, competed Dec. 15-17, and returned home Dec. 21. On their return trip to Moscow, they trained at the Olympic complex.

The contrast between what is available to the general public and to athletes was dramatic, according to Palmer.

“Their sports complexes are owned and operated by the government,” he said. “They take the kids in and train them, and they have some of the best facilities (of every type) you ever saw. But the people have nothing. We went to some of the shops and there was absolutely nothing to buy. They have no modern plumbing, no single-family homes. Most live in little, three-room apartments.”

But, it wasn’t what the people had that made the trip. It was attitude.

“They kept us on the go all the time,” Palmer said. “We stayed with families with two swimmers in a home. Each home had its own interpreter who traveled with us. Wherever we went, they went. When the kids went back to the home, the interpreter got off the bus and went to the door to make sure the host family was there.”

The Russian love for swimming is perhaps no more clearly etched in Palmer’s mind than by what he saw from his bedroom window at the sports center where the group stayed before returning home.

“There were two, outdoor 50-meter swimming pools with a stadium that seats 1,700 to 2,000 people,” he said, “and here’s a coach, walking around the deck in his overcoat, hat, mittens and boots. It’s 20 degrees below zero, and swimmers are swimming. I just had to go down and see that.”

What Palmer learned is the pool is heated to 78 degrees. The swimmers get into the water inside the complex and swim through a tunnel to the pool, never leaving the water.

As with most foreign travel, there were the amusing, lack-of-communication memories. With the food not exactly what they were used to, the swimmers made a request for the Russian variation of our pancake (thin and rolled like a jelly roll) and eggs. “The next day they got chicken noodle soup with a hard-boiled egg in it,” Palmer said.

Palmer said YMCA planners are trying to make arrangments for the Russians to visit in the spring.

“They really want to come.” Palmer said, adding that the problem is getting plane tickets since, there are a limited number of flights from Moscow.


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