Talent 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.
Swimming
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 Performance Programme (NDPP) 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.
Para-Swimming
The Region delivers para training sessions at Catterick Leisure Centre between October and May each season. Each day consists of pool session, dry land session and educational workshops. Any clubs who have para swimmers should head to our Para-Swimming section (navigate via the Disciplines menu above) for more information about classification, regional training and Start Para programmes.
Diving
The clubs work with the pool operators and other community partners to identify talented individuals and introduce them to a structured training and competition programme. These feed into the club structure which operate in, and are supported by, many facilities who have the appropriate facilities available. The facilities with clubs operating at the higher range of the talent programme based at the John Charles Aquatics Centre in Leeds, Ponds Forge in Sheffield and the Sunderland Aquatics Centre. The structure has a track record of producing world class athletes who have competed and won titles at the highest level.
More information on Diving within the region can be found on the North East Diving section on our website.
Artistic Swimming
Clubs across the region introduce athletes to this discipline, nurture and develop their skills and compete at the appropriate level. Appropriately talented individuals have the opportunity to progress further to train with other individuals of a similar standard or above from the network of clubs mainly focused in the Leeds area. Talent camps take place within the region with individuals given the opportunity to complete in overseas competitions and at home nations and British competitions.
More information on this can be found on within the North East Artistic Swimming section on our website.
Water Polo
A range of clubs operate across the region which cater for entry level athletes who can develop their skills and progress through to local, district, regional and nation competitions. There is also the opportunity to travel abroad and play overseas in competitions. The region organises training sessions for talented individuals in the regional academy structure and enters teams in the National Age Group competitions. Several individuals have gone on to progress to compete at an international level.
More information on this can be found within North East Water Polo section on our website.