‘Exciting and educational’ weekend ahead for next Water Polo Talent Games

The final Swim England Water Polo Talent Games of this Talent Centre year is set to take place this weekend, with an ‘exciting’ yet ‘educational’ two days planned for those involved.

Following on from a successful inaugural event, the Talent Games returns to Coventry’s Alan Higgs Centre across 8 and 9 July.

Competing for gold this time around will be the North (Bolton), South (Bristol), London (Croydon) and Midlands (Hucknall) Talent Centres.

Similarly to the first event, there will be a number of educational workshops for players, coaches and families throughout the course of the weekend.

All pool-based sessions will be led by a mixture of Great Britain coaches and Swim England staff – all of whom have experience working with multiple national team age groups and programmes.

The first workshop will be classroom-based and aimed at the athletes competing, with the topic of focus being sports psychology.

It will be led by Paula West of the Diploma in Sporting Excellence (DiSE) team and she will discuss player selections and how to react constructively to both positive and negative selection decisions.

National team coach, Sarah Dunsbee, will then lead a player workshop on the importance of being a clean athlete and giving an introduction to anti-doping.

Next up will be a pool-based session led by the GB coaches, before a parent’s introduction to nutrition for aspiring elite athletes with Mick Edmond from the DiSE team.

Fantastic opportunity

Ahead of the second-ever Talent Games, Swim England Water Polo’s talent and inclusion officer, Andy McGinty, said: “We’re looking forward to running another successful Talent Games for the athletes, coaches and parents.

“It is set to be an exciting, but also really educational event, and it will be great to see how the players have progressed since March.

“The Talent Games provide a fantastic opportunity and help athletes gain insight and experience in competing at the top level for their age groups.

“I can’t wait to see who will be crowned talent centre national champions and more importantly, I can’t wait to take another step towards our long-term goal of improving the standard of water polo across England and Great Britain.”

Find out more about the Swim England Water Polo Talent Centre initiative here.

Check out the video below for a taster of what to expect at the Swim England Water Polo Talent Games.