Camp 1: Friday 10 - Sunday 12 November; Camp 2: Friday 17 - Sunday 19 November
Over two action-packed weekends, Swimming NSW's top athletes gathered for intensive training at the NSW National Flipper Squad Stroke Group Camps, supported by Swimming Australia's National Flippers funding. With the support of Swimming NSW other NSW swimmers were identified by NSW Technical Lead Leigh Nugent and Swimming NSW Coaching Director Jon Shaw to join the camps. These camps had the theme of being an Open level camp where the athletes were responsible for their recovery and focus so they were ready for the next training session.
Led by some of our State’s best coaches, our swimmers trained together over the weekend, focusing on the specifics of their own event. We teamed up with some on Victoria’s best, which was a great collaboration bringing all our coaches and athletes together. The team stayed in Athlete Residence at the Australian Institute of Sport, and even had access to the AIS Recovery Centre and High-Performance athlete room over the weekend.
Athletes were split by stroke groups, and trained together over the weekend, with lead coaches steering our team through some challenging sets.
BREASTSTROKE: Shannon Rollason & Nic Dobson
SPRINT FREE: Sander Ganzevles & Paul Bruce
FLY/BACK: Ben Tuxford & Amanda Isaac
MEDLEY: Justin Rothwell & Matthew Brown
The pool sessions were demanding, all while focusing on skill execution. The weekends included a Strength and Conditioning session in the amazing gym facilities.
The sessions were designed to build into each other with intensity increasing with each session. The camp was full of quality work at a high standard with so much learning gained by all athletes. It provided an opportunity for our athletes to bond as a team, with so many smiles and lots of laughs across both weekends.
A standout moment was the offer of a Coach Scholarship position presented to Jason Lewis from Orange Swim Club. Coach Scholarship opportunities give coaches with or without athletes in areas of the Performance Pathway exposure to high performance coaching. Jason noted ‘the high level of focus, performance and self-awareness of the swimmers at the camp was impressive to see and shows what is required to compete at the highest level’. This observation is a credit to all of our athletes in attendance at the camps.
A big congratulations and thank you to all of our athletes that were a part of these stroke group camps over the two weekends. A huge thank you to all our Lead coaches, coaches and managers who volunteered their time, shared their knowledge, and supported our athletes. And a massive thank you to Leigh Nugent, NSW’s Technical Coaching Director, and our NSW Coaching Director Jon Shaw for your vision in bringing this concept to NSW!
GO THE MIGHTY BLUES!
