Two young Guernsey Swimming Club swimmers, Emma Bourgaize and Oliver Stephens, were invited earlier this year to join the Hampshire Talent Development Camp 2020.
36 Swimmers from across the County were selected to attend the Camp based on the results of the Hampshire County Swimming Championships held early February 2020 and individual British rankings.
The Talent Camp forms the first step on the British Swimming Development Pathway towards British Swimming National Training and enables young, aspiring, 11 year old swimmers from across the county to get together and take part in a series of workshops including educational presentations and discussions and pool and land based activity sessions.
With Covid-19 restrictions still in place in the UK the first session, led by Kim Hill, County Head Coach for Hampshire Swimming and Head Coach for Rushmore Royals Swimming Club was held this weekend as an interactive session over Zoom. Swimmers dialled in from across the county including Guernsey and Jersey and one swimmer currently in lock down in Malaysia. The workshop enabled the young athletes to share their experiences from lock down and returning to the pool after several weeks away from training and included a swimming based quiz followed by a discussion session on the individual qualities each swimmer is looking to develop within their training and a presentation from Jasmine Campbell, Performance Nutritionalist form Swim England on “Back to Training Nutrition”.
Further workshops are planned later in the year and the hope remains that an in-person session will be able to be held in the UK in early 2021 enabling the swimmers to meet and take part in land and pool based activities together.
Each swimmer will also receive a Hampshire Talent Camp T-shirt for taking part in the development programme.
