Swim England National Winter Championships 2023 extended to four days

This year’s Swim England National Winter Championships will be extended to a four-day competition instead of its usual three-day slot.

The decision has been made by Swim England’s Swimming Leadership Group following feedback from clubs, coaches and swimmers following last year’s competition.

It means that the 2023 event will run from 14-17 December at Sheffield’s, Ponds Forge International Sports Centre – after the national governing body revealed that the event would move later in the month back in March.

The Championships are the biggest English swimming meet of the winter months and often welcomes a number of Britain’s top senior swimmers.

Last year saw more than 2,600 entries across 36 events at the competition and the extra day in 2023 will see the Championships welcome the inclusion of para-swimming for the very first time as well as addition of more long-distance swimming events.

As part of the change to the event there will also be no Swim England organised training day prior to this year’s competition with the new four-day format aiming to provide athletes that have entered more than one event more opportunity to rest and recuperate between races.

On the move to a four-day competition, Richard Blackshaw, Head of Talent for Swimming said: “Extending the National Winter Championships to four days provides a number of opportunities for our athletes.

“We’ve taken on-board feedback from our coaches, clubs and swimmers about the event and believe that this decision will facilitate and improve performance across the competition.

“It also gives the chance for our para-athletes to experience national level quality racing to develop their skills against the best swimmers from across the nation.

“I’m looking forward to seeing all of the athletes compete across the four days at Ponds Forge later this year.”

More information about the event, including a draft schedule of the competition, will be published in due course on the events home page.