Swim England has announced the creation of five new National Swimming Performance Centers aimed at supporting the nation’s emerging talent. With a goal of providing swimmers with opportunities to stay in the sport, achieve academic excellence and perform to the highest standards, Swim England selected the centers based on an application process with its Talent Team providing ongoing support through funding, coaching and technical advice.
Below are the 5 center’s listed by Club and affiliated University:
- Guildford City Swimming Club/University of Surrey
- Leeds Swimming Club/University of Leeds/Leeds Beckett University
- City of Manchester Aquatics Swim Team (COMAST)/Manchester Metropolitan University
- Nova Centurion Swimming Club, Nottingham/ Nottingham University
- Wycombe District Swimming Club/ Buckinghamshire New University
Of these new centers, Grant Robins, Head of Talent for Swimming at Swim England, said, “The Performance Centre project is an exciting initiative that will expand and extend the Swim England Talent Programme.
“The Performance Centres link swimming clubs and universities to support the development of young swimmers both in the pool and academically.
“By creating a number of centres, swimmers will be able to move from the junior to senior swimming ranks while continuing their studies. It will also help to make the transition to the British Swimming World Class programme more accessible, leading to more English athletes reaching the highest levels of the sport.”
George Wood, Swim England Sport Development Director, said, “We are incredibly proud to be working with local partners to develop these Swim England Performance Centres. We are passionate about providing our club members with opportunities to keep training and by working with local universities, this will enable them to achieve both their academic and swimming potential.
“We look forward to supporting the Swim England Performance Centres and how we can expand the programme in the future.”
When the application process for the centers was announced back in March of this year, Swim England had estimated that just 4 locations would be determined. At the time, the nation’s governing body said, “by creating a new network of centres, swimmers will be able to move from the junior to senior ranks while also continuing their studies. It will also help to make the transition to the British Swimming World Class programme more accessible, leading to more English athletes reaching the highest levels of the sport.”
The creation of the centers comes after the London Aquatics Centre Performance Programme (LACPP) was suddenly shut down in June of 2017, leaving elite swimmers, including Aimee Willmott, without a training home.
Plymouth has a fantastic 50 metre pool along with the most successful club over the last 10 years with a working partnership with 2 Universities and a highly successful college but was not selected. This astonishes me.
Strange how they miss the top performing club from the last three years nationals off the list , the only club outside the NTC’s that actively works with varsity teams and supports over 10 university swimmers and regularly places swimmers on national and Olympic teams, sounds more like politics and box ticking to me
It’s strange how Manchester is selected over Stockport and Leeds over Sheffield, when there is no comparison between them when it comes to performance, like the other comment box ticking politics, with public money.
Would be interested to know what the clubs actually receive from swim England
It’s strange how Manchester is selected over Stockport and Leeds over Sheffield, when there is no comparison between them when it comes to performance, like the other comment box ticking politics, with public money.
Would be interested to know what the clubs actually receive from swim England
To call these programmes “performance centres” is a little miss leading and just a re-boot of the old swim England centres that is referenced in the article, don’t think they were particularly succesful. I also can’t imagine the national centre coaches will be to happy, british swimming or probably Uk sport with another level of underfunded promises between swimmers and a fully functioning performance centres in Bath/Loughborough.