Welcome to Swimming in the North East!

Swimming is an important lifelong skill which can offer something for everyone. Learning to swim will introduce you to a whole new world of water-based activities in the pool and beyond – for example – surfing, rowing, canoeing, fishing, sailing, triathlon… the list goes on! Whatever your age or ability, it’s a great form of all-round exercise and provides a way to be more active, stay healthy and progress into competition and other aquatic disciplines (such as artistic swimming, diving and water polo).

Your local pool is very often the best place to start and they will offer a programme of activities which cater for local needs. As you progress and swim more regularly and develop your skills, you may wish to consider joining a local club which is a great way to make new friends, improve your swimming and motivate you to exercise regularly.

Clubs across the region provide the opportunity to develop your skills even further and to specialise in strokes, short or long distance events and open water swimming. They provide a doorway into competitive swimming on a local, district, county, regional and national level. Swimming clubs also have a lively social scene away from the pool, with trips away and nights out. They also provide the opportunity to get involved in other swimming related activities such as lifesaving, coaching, officiating and doing many other club related roles.

Swimmer Development

Swimmers of all levels and abilities should be celebrated in our aquatics community. Water-based activities like swimming are great for both physical and mental health, and the memories and friendships made will last a lifetime. As well as developing sport-specific technical and physical components, swimmers will also pick up a number of transferable lifestyle skills (time management, discipline, resilience, goal setting, confidence, teamwork, perseverance, communication skills) that will serve them well throughout their lives.

Performance Pathways

It can take years to produce a champion, so in most cases, talented athletes will be identified and nurtured within their club environment first and foremost. Swim England has a number of  development pathways across the disciplines to ensure that an individual’s talent is identified and developed to help them reach their full potential.

The North East Region has two Performance clubs in Yorkshire (City of Leeds SC and City of Sheffield Swim Squad), and within Northumberland and Durham, the county supports the Northumberland and Durham Training Programme (NDTP) which runs regular long course sessions at Sunderland Aquatics Centre for the County’s highest ranked senior, youth and age group swimmers.

Swim England has a Talent Development programme that takes youngsters who have already shown promise and gives them access to quality coaching, athlete educational schemes and physiotherapy screening within a training camp environment, in order to prepare them for future international competition. These camps run at a county and regional level before progressing onto a national and international level. Once swimmers are selected for International  squads, they will usually become involved in the performance pathway through British Swimming.

British Swimming is the national governing body for Swimming, Diving, Artistic Swimming, Water Polo and Open Water in Great Britain.  It is responsible internationally for the high performance representation of the sport. The members of British Swimming are the three Home Country national governing bodies of England (Swim England), Scotland (Scottish Swimming) and Wales (Swim Wales).

British Swimming seeks to enable its athletes to achieve gold medal success at the Olympics, Paralympics, World Championships and Commonwealth Games.

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