Middlesbrough Swimming Development Camp

Young swimmers made a splash recently at a swimming development camp held in Middlesbrough. The camp, supported by the Tees Valley Sport Partnership, the Amateur Swimming Association North East Region and Middlesbrough Amateur Swimming Club, was hosted at the Neptune and offered swimmers from the Learn to Swim programmes the chance to be coached by qualified coaches and experience club style training.

25 swimmers, aged 7 to 11, who were in Levels 8 – 10 of school and council Learn to Swim programmes were selected to attend one hours training a day for a week. The coaches were impressed with the techniques shown and the standard of swimming and are now looking forward to inviting some new swimmers to join the club.

Tees Valley Sport’s Swimming Development Officer, Jane Roche, was delighted with the progress made by many of the young swimmers;

“The swimmers really enjoyed the sessions and I was amazed at how much they developed their skills and technique. It’s great to see local clubs like Middlesbrough running these development camps and using them as a way of developing enthusiastic swimmers and encouraging them to join swimming clubs.”

Middlesbrough and Great Britain swimmer Peter Thompson, European Junior Championship bronze medallist and British age group record holder at 14, 15, 16 and 17 years for 200m Butterfly, visited the development camp during the week. Peter attended a similar development camp before joining Middlesbrough Swimming Club, and as such was able to help inspire and motivate the young swimmers.

Tees Valley Sport see these development camps as vital to the success of swimming in the local area and hope to continue to support similar camps in the future.