Swim England Development Pathway 2023/24

There have been a number of changes to the Development Pathway at the behest of and after discussion with Swim England.

The main point to note is that the age on which selection for the part to be delivered by the County will be 12 years as at the end of the first year of each annual cycle- so for 2023/24 swimmers will be 12 as at 31st December 2023. 

This may be disappointing for those swimmers aged 11 who expected to be eligible for the Pathway this year but that is the decision of the National Governing Body and all things being equal they will have the opportunity in 2024/25.

We will be selecting a maximum of 48 swimmers. Swim England have the option of nominating para swimmers so if this occurs the overall number of other swimmers will be reduced accordingly. Subject to that there will be 24 open/male and 24 female swimmers selected. In order to be fairer to those swimmers who were born later in the year (and subject to minimum standards based on FINA points) a minimum of 12 open/male swimmers and 12 female swimmers born on or after 1 July 2011 will be selected.

The selection will be based primarily on times for 200m Individual Medley Long Course and then Short Course rankings between 1 January 2023 and 6 August 2023.  As mentioned above we reserve the right to draw a line based on FINA points below which we will not select swimmers without considering other swimmers who have higher points scores at first 200m form events and then 200m freestyle who may not be ranked in the 200Im rankings. The selection will be made in August but please do not chase us for these as the end of the selection period falls in the middle of the holidays and like many of you our volunteers and Camp staff are also away on holiday.

There will be two face-to-face Camps: the first on 29 October 2023 and second provisionally on 2 June 2024.  All the virtual elements will be delivered at the face-to-face camps.

The other Big News is to welcome Karen Bradbury of RTW Monson as our new Lead Coach for the Pathway