A letter published in February's edition of Swimming Times brings up an important issue concerning swimming, but probably other sports as well. It involves children who are daily shipped off to begin their day's training at 4.30 a.m. It states: "I am intrigued by the idea of anyone getting children out of bed for a 4.30 a.m. breakfast and then tearing across the country to swim and believing this to be in the children's best interests. Aside from the obsessive focus on swimming, these children are being required to live in a world which is differently ordered from that of their peers - even their swimming peers.

"Success in swimming is hard won, but to involve children in the pursuit of goals which are achieved only at the expense of their normality, or potentially their childhood, seems to me to fall into the definition of abuse . . . The drop-out rate among Irish age-groupers suggests that they may be getting too much too soon. At any rate, getting children up in the middle of the night to drive many miles for a swim seems to me not the good example that is claimed. "

The letter was written by Joanne Moles, Limerick. It deserves an airing.