Pathway divers enjoy three-day development camp in Southend

Some of the nation’s best up-and-coming divers have been in Southend for a three-day Junior Development Camp.

The camp at the Southend Tennis and Leisure Centre was run jointly by Swim England, Aquatics GB and Scottish Swimming to help prepare the athletes for their major events later in the year.

Amongst those on the camp were a number of those that were selected for the Swim England Junior Development squad, as well as those on the Aquatics GB Podium Potential programme.

Throughout the three days, the divers were put into training groups that were chosen based on their areas of priority for the upcoming season.

They got the chance to enjoy a number of pool sessions with their home coaches and got the opportunity to work on several key skills such as board awareness, rip entries, twisting and plyometrics. 

There was also a number of exciting workshops headed up by the likes of Aquatics GB Head Coach Alexei Evangulov, pathway lead Jen Leeming and performance coach Tom Owens. 

That included several educational sessions, with two for the athletes on UKAD and pain in diving whilst coaches got the chance to learn about growth and load monitoring, as well as taking part in a dive progression task. 

There was even an exciting session hosted by Jess and Dan, who work in the British Athletics systems, who ran a sprint and speed training session for the 39-strong group to round out the camp.

An exciting season ahead

Reflecting on the three days, Connie Ford, Swim England Diving Programme Lead said: “The Pathway Development camp was another excellent collaboration between Aquatics GB, Swim England and Scottish Swimming.

“It was great to bring our junior divers together for the first time this year and to see how much they want to improve throughout the coming season.

“We hope they all took a lot from this camp that they can take back to their home training environments to help them focus on their own key areas in the coming months.  

“Thank you to all the incredible team that came to support them throughout the three days and we’re looking forward to seeing how both the athletes and coaches develop going forwards.”

You can find out more about the Swim England Diving talent pathway here.