The North East Region have selected 30 swimmers to attend this year’s open water development camps. Swimmers have been invited to participate in two sessions which will take place in June in preparation for the NW/NE Open Water Championships on Saturday 9th July at Sale Water Park: https://swimnorthwest.org/event-course/senw-sene-open-water-championships-2022/

 

The Regional Open Water Squad forms part of the Swim England national swimming talent pathway and will provide an opportunity for swimmers to develop their open water skills. The camp will also provide an opportunity for swimmers to work with different coaches and to train in a different environment. We hope that the camps will be a positive and rewarding experience, with the intention of them being a stepping-stone for swimmers to progress to further stages of the pathway in the future.

 

Marathon swimming has been included as an event at the Olympic Games since Beijing 2008, where British athletes won 3 of the 6 medals awarded. English swimmers Kerri-Anne Payne (double world 10Km champion and European SC 400m freestyle champion) and Cassie Patten (world 10Km silver medalist and 4th at World SC for 800m freestyle) won silver and bronze respectively in the Womens 10Km, and Welshman David Davies won silver in the Mens 10Km (won bronze in Athens 2004 in the 1500m). The best athletes in the marathon events are generally great pool swimmers first, which is why we would like to introduce this cohort of swimmers to the exciting world of open water through our Regional Squad. 

This year’s camps will engage with athletes in the 12 -16 year old age groups where age is defined as at 31st December 2022. Selections were taken directly from the National rankings for the 12 month period up to and including 31st March 2022 due to the absence of open water events from the calendar during the pandemic. The top 3 male and female performances were identified from each single age group in the 1500m and 800m Freestyle respectively.

 

The camps will take place as detailed below:

 

Date	Venue	Time
Saturday 11th June2022	Sunderland Aquatics Centre, SR5 1SU	13:00 arrival  – 16:00 departure
Saturday 25th June 2022	Manvers Lake, Rotherham. S63 7EH	1230 arrival – 1530 departure

The Head Coach for this year’s programme will be Chris Leighton (Borough of Stockton Swim Squad) who is a level 2 qualified open water coach, and he will be supported by coaches from around the region who will act as skills coaches.

 

Any queries relating to this year’s squad should be directed to Louise Graham (email: louise.graham@swimnortheast.org)