Several Scottish swimmers were among the British 2016 Olympic contingency which saw its best Summer Olympic outing since 1908. Dan Wallace, Robbie Renwick, Duncan Scott, and Camilla Hattersley are just a few among the notable Scottish athletes who were in the Rio medal mix in the form of an Olympic final or a valuable relay component.
Looking now to the next Olympic quadrennial, Scottish Swimming has announced its National Performance Squad rosters for the 2016-17 season. Among the aforementioned mark-makers, University of Stirling mainstays Craig Benson and Ross Murdoch also scored a Senior Gold spot, as did Edinburgh’s Callum Tait and Lucy Hope, as well as Garioch’s Hannah Miley.
On the rosters, swimmers aged 16 and under are designated as ‘Junior’, while those 17+ are ‘Senior’, with further differentiation made for ‘Gold’, ‘Silver’ and ‘Bronze.’ Designed to guide swimmers along the organization’s ‘Swimmer Pathway’, the overriding selection criteria for each squad is a culmination of a two-decade-long process, taking into account such Scottish Swimming initiatives as Mindset and Long Term Athlete Development (LTAD).
Among the 25 Senior Gold squad, the list of 25 athletes targeted as most promising to win Commonwealth Games medals and beyond, 7 hail from the University of Stirling and 5 stem from the University of Edinburgh.
Below is a complete listing of the Senior Gold National Performance Squad, with the additional rosters able to be seen here. You can review the Scottish Swimming official selection criteria here.
