Swimming Australia camps kick off around the country

Australia’s top swimmers will begin assembling around the country this week for a series of technical stroke-based National Event Camps (NECs), as they start their campaigns to qualify for July’s FINA World Championships in South Korea.

Between Sunday 10th February and Saturday 23rd March, a total of seven camps will take place focussing on all strokes and relays, with Michael Bohl’s (Griffith University) Butterfly camp kicking off the program on the Gold Coast this weekend.

Since the inception of NECs in the 1990s, the camps have had long history in high performance swimming in Australia, with the last series of camps taking place in 2013.

National Team Head Coach Jacco Verhaeren said the camps would provide opportunities for collaboration, innovation and to sharpen technical focus, commenting “this is a great chance for some of our top athletes, as well as those coming through the pathway program, to come together and train with athletes and coaches from outside of their own home squads.

“These camps will foster healthy competition and allow athletes to have increased access to event-specific coaching from inside our senior level programs.

“Athletes who are in the early stages of their careers will be exposed to senior international training preparation which will be extremely beneficial, and they’ll be able to create connections with other athletes.”

The camps will be supported by some of the country’s top sports science and sport medicine professionals who will provide support on innovation for both athletes and coaches.

Some of Australia’s most prominent swimming coaches will lead the camps including: Dean Boxall (St Peter’s Western), Peter Bishop (Marion), David Lush (Brisbane Grammar), Craig Jackson (Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre High Performance Coach), Chris Mooney (University of Sunshine Coast) and Simon Cusack (NSW High Performance Coach).

The head coaches will be supported by assistant coaches as well as an Australian Swim Coaches and Teachers Association scholarship coach, who will attend the camps as a professional development opportunity.

The Freestyle camps will be dispersed and split around the country, with the Men’s 100m, 200m and Relay camps taking place in Adelaide (24th February to 2nd March). Meanwhile, Cusack will lead the Women’s 100m Freestyle and Relay camp in Canberra (17th to 23rd March) and Boxall will take the 200m and a Relay camp in Noosa (23rd February to 2nd March).

The Breaststroke camp (6th to 13th March), managed by Mooney, will assemble in Maroochydore and the Backstroke camp (17th to 23rd March) will head to Brisbane under the watchful eye of Lush.

Image: The start of the 200m womens freestyle at the 2018 Swimming Australia trials at the SA Aquatic and Leisure Centre. Courtesy of the SA Aquatic and Leisure Centre.