Cardiff swim coach Dave Tonge has added more famous faces to his clientele as he is training a group of former Welsh rugby players to swim the channel. Dave has been a professional swim coach for over twenty-five years and was a national swimmer for Cardiff from aged eight up until 19.
He started his teaching career at Cardiff Metropolitan University where he became the head swimming coach before becoming a lecturer at the university. He is now the Director of Heathwood Swimming in Cardiff and has coached a number of well-known Welsh stars.
His latest venture is training former Welsh Rugby Union players to swim in a channel relay swim, 'The Big Rugby Swim' , for the dementia charity Head For Change. The relay will see members of the rugby union go head to head with members of the rugby league in a swim of the English Channel in October 2023.
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Dave has been coaching former players such as Shane Williams, Ryan Jones, Ian Gough, Kieran Low and co-founder of Head for Change Alix Popham. A former Wales international, Alix was diagnosed with the brain condition probable chronic traumatic encephalopathy and early onset dementia in April 2020 and has spoken about the numerous sub-concussions sustained over the course of his 14-year professional career. Speaking to WalesOnline he said: "It is a charity that I set up with my wife and two other trustees because there was nothing really there available for support and advice when I had my diagnosis almost three years ago. We knew the volume of players and we needed to get something in place sharpish after I got diagnosed.
"I really enjoy my training with Dave. I couldn't really swim a few months ago, I could swim to survive and get to the side of a pool but never long distance. He has been brilliant working on my technique, only looking to change one thing at a time, not chucking ten different things at me at once. It's been brilliant especially when the weather is not great and you can't get in the sea. It's been a good part of my training programme with the facility he has there."
They hope to raise £250,000 for Head for Change, which was set up to support ex-rugby and football players that have suffered neurological problems due to head injuries occurred while playing the sport. According to Alix, the money raised will go towards "care and support for affected players and their families, education from the grassroots up to the elite game and senior rugby and the independent research including experimental treatments that could help individuals."
As part of their training for the event, both groups of players took part in their first training weekend at the Celtic Manor in January. Alix said: "We got in the sea in Clevedon and used Dave's pools. We have another training weekend on May 12 and 13 in Tenby where we are looking to do a sea swim again and potentially a swim off a boat over that weekend." The training for the relay as well as the event itself is also being filmed by Sky TV as part of a documentary.
Speaking to WalesOnline about his career, Dave said that while working at the Cyncoed campus of Cardiff Met, there was talk of a new pool on campus and he suggested an endless pool be installed, as he had seen them being used in America. Endless pools allow you to swim against a current in which you can alter the speed to suit you, a method some people use when training to swim in open water, and which can also be used as a form of physiotherapy.
However the plans for a new pool did not come to fruition and Dave was left yearning for his own endless pool. He said: "It was just always on my mind." After sadly losing his father in 2016, Dave was left with a sum of money that for most would not be considered life-changing but for Dave would mean the start of his dream.
Dave had the idea to install an endless pool in his garage at his home in St Mellons and said: "I had a long list of people who were interested in it, like triathletes who wanted technique work, and there was nothing available, especially for adults. And the amount of adults in South Wales that never learned to swim is mad." Once the pool was installed he took on 20 clients within six weeks while still working full-time job at the university.
As his business began to grow, Dave decided to expand to three pools in a unit in Cardiff and left his job at the university in 2018. He added: "The best decision I ever made was leaving the university and doing this full-time." Dave now has 12 coaches working at the facility with over one hundred swimmers on a weekly basis, including many well-known faces.
His first well-known client was former Welsh rugby player Gareth Thomas, who Dave considers one of his "rugby heroes." Dave taught Gareth to swim in just a few months and trained him to swim in open water in order to complete the Ironman Wales triathlon in 2019.
As well as Dave's contribution to The Big Rugby Swim event in October, he is also an ambassador for Velindre Cancer Care. He is the World Record Holder for a 24 hour swim in a wetsuit in an endless pool, raising £10,000 for Velindre Cancer Care as of June 2021. He also raised around £10,000 for the charity in July 2022 alongside other swimmers at 'The Big C Swim' in which a group of Velindre supporters swam a one mile open water swim in Solva.
Dave's business is ever-growing and not showing any signs of stopping, and he said he was looking into plans to expand even further to reach more people in the Cardiff and south Wales area.
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