Programme Selections

Every season sees the top swimmers in the country picked for Swim England's National Development Programmes. This is a series of camps intended to teach young athletes the skills, techniques and reinforce the characteristics of Elite Level athletes that they will need to excel in the sport. we're delighted to announce that 2024 has been one of our most successful years for Camp Selections with 9 selected to attend throughout the year. We've been recording these selections in our Honours section since 2015.

The table above shows the numbers involved in those camps nationally. You'll notice a big drop as athletes approach the point where they're expected to perform on the highest stage. It takes a lot of hard work to continue getting selected throughout a swimmer's development.

For the 2024/2025 season, we're delighted to announce that James Ellis, Sofia-Elyse Sanders and George Needham has been selected for the County Development camps. Alongside them, Head Coach Jordan Allerton makes a return for his 4th camp and will be acting as a Skills Coach other leading coaches across the County.

Next up we have 4 athletes selected for the one day Swim England North East Region Camp at Sunderland with special guest and 2 time Commonwealth meddalist (and Backstroke Specialist) Elliot Clogg attending the full day, contributing to the pool sessions as well as providing insight in to his swimming journey and dealing with high pressure situations enabling him to perform at his peak when it matters. Congratulations to Kiera Binns, Lexie Goddard, Jessica Hubery and Kennedy Matthews.

And finally Phoebe Weatherill has been selected for the Swim England National Age Group Development Programme. Selection is made based on an athlete's highest long course ranking in an Olympic event. So for you sprinters out there, only the 50m Freestyle counts - go bigger! Focus during the 3 camps will be on development of all their form stroke. In addition there will be Land training to enhance starts and turns, injury prevention workshops, stroke efficiency and other technical considerations. Phoebe has already came back with some interesting concepts that National Squad have put to use in training. Only 192 swimmers are selected nationally for these camps, and they'll be spread around various locations - with Phoebe heading to Huddersfield. Congratulations to her, and work hard this season if anyone else wants to push themselves into consideration for future programmes.