Several years ago, I spent a year in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, coaching swimming for the Saudi Arabian Swimming Federation. I do hope the swimmers involved learned something about the sport. Certainly, I learned something about myself – yes, I’m a racist.

That realisation began on my first day in the Kingdom. I had an appointment at the Jeddah Pool to meet the city’s three best swimmers. Eyad, Yammen and Loai were to form the heart of my training group. I had very low expectations. Saudi is not a country known for its swimming success. I expected three small, swarthy Arabic guys to appear. Three men better suited to racing camels across the Saudi desert than competitive pool swimming. Little guys with thin, wiry bodies totally unsuited to competitive swimming were about to appear in the pool meeting room.

But no, by any world standard, in walked three big guys, all well over 6 foot, with muscles to burn. Physically they would fit comfortably into any American University swim team photograph. Where had they come from, my brain asked? Why was my expectation so different from reality? Things were not as I imagined. The only answer was racism. It was time for me to learn something about this place and its people.

Thirty minutes later we were in the pool. Surprise number two. These guys could swim – pretty bloody well in fact. They needed some professional coaching. I could see that. But their talent was without question. Their feel of the water was first class. Being brought up in a desert Kingdom did not mean their swimming skills were non-existent. Racist impression number two needed revision.

Realisation of a character flaw this serious comes as a shock. I had long considered myself to be a relatively broad minded liberal. After all I had coached some of the world’s best female athletes. Rebellion against the prejudice faced by women had been key to that success. I had learned from being challenged by Victoria University lecturer, Alan Ladlaw, who, when I told him about females training as far as John Walker, asked me why I felt it necessary to compare their training with a man. I learned and never made that mistake again. But perhaps that experience was my weakness. Perhaps that had made me smug – self-confident in my liberalism. Could I be liberal in one area, but a racist conservative in others? Saudi taught me the answer to that was, yes.

I next confronted my personal racism when I was invited to eat out in a local restaurant. Would it be clean? What would the food be like? Should I drink the water? Was I risking food poisoning or worse? How racist can one person be? The reality was we ate at a local Applebee Restaurant. The facilities, the food and the service were better than many I had used in ten years coaching in the United States.

But probably the greatest challenge to my western prejudice came when I trod on a nail walking across a strip of desert between my hotel and the pool. It got infected and Eyad’s father, who is a doctor, said I needed hospital treatment. Here was a real challenge. Coaching talented swimmers and eating at Applebee was one thing. Putting my life in the hands of a Saudi hospital was a different thing altogether. Every prejudiced fiber in my being was on full alert.

Again, I was wrong. The facilities were first class and spotless. My treatment by doctors and nurses was exceptional. Caring and concerned they gave me the appropriate vaccinations and tablets. They dressed the wound every second day for three weeks. In a month my foot was as good as new.

I should have known my treatment would be first class. Eyad’s father had looked at the foot and immediately recommended hospital treatment. But I knew and trusted him. And so I should have. He received his medical education and degree in Syria’s leading medical college. Medical education has had its problems in Syria since the war began. Before that, however, Syrian medical training had earned huge international recognition. They were teaching medicine there long before the west thought to do the same. And in the case of Eyad’s father the history of a first-class education shows. Caring, kind, knowledgeable, a stickler for detail and never one for shortcuts – all the qualities you expect in a good doctor.

He said to me early in my stay in Jeddah, “Don’t walk outside in the mid-day sun.”

I asked, “Why not?”

He said, “David, look in a mirror at the color of your skin. Does that look like it needs to avoid the hot Arabian sun?”

The hospital treatment he recommended showed the same qualities. My Jeddah experience forced me to recognise my racist views. It was good for me. If I passed on as much about swimming as I learned about my own unconscious blind prejudice the year next to the Red Sea will have been well spent.