Support for speed swimmers of all abilities to enable them to reach their full potential is a major objective of Hampshire County Swimming Association. This is achieved through a programme of competitions and training opportunities.
The County runs county swimming championships over three weekends in January, February and March each year. These are part of the pathway leading to the National Championships in the summer. The County Championships represents the opportunity for swimmers to record times that qualify them to enter Regional competitions. Arrangements for future Championships and results of past Championships may be found here.
The County used to run a Development Competition in June/July to encourage swimmers who did not qualify for The County Championships. However, with the proliferation of Open Meets run by clubs, there is no longer a need for the County to run this competition. Details of past Development Competitions may be found here.
The County selects a team to compete in the Swim England County Teams Championships in October.
Swim England organises a programme to provide development opportunities for swimmers of all ages and abilities. The role of Hampshire County in this programme is to organise three one day camps for younger swimmers based on performance in the County Championships.
Hampshire County ASA works with facility providers (local authorities and leisure management companies) to ensure that appropriate facilities for training and competition are available across the county.
Speed swimming is managed by the Hampshire County Swimming Committee, a group of volunteers representing clubs, coaches, officials and people who organise competitions, which meets around four times per year.
Upcoming Competitions
The 2020 Hampshire County Development Competition has been cancelled because of the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic.
We are hopeful that conditions will return to normal in time for use to run the 2021 Swimming Championships as planned.
Provisional dates are
- 15th/16th/17th January @ Portsmouth
- 30th/31st January @ Waterlooville
- 6th/7th February @ Portsmouth
We will obviously need to take into account the impact of the break in training resulting from the lock-down. It is likely that we will NOT have consideration times and will take the fastest entries for each event and will need to take into account the meets that are licensed in the autumn.
If swimming restarts by the start of September, our target is to publish qualifying criteria by the end of October.
More details will be published on the swimmeets.org site.
Hampshire Talent Camps
Unfortunately, it has not been possible to proceed with the planned programme of camps this year, because of the impact of COVID-19.
We were hoping to be able to proceed with one camp in the autumn for the swimmers who have been selected. However, Swim England have advised that we should not do so.
Jon Brayne, from Rushmoor Royals, who was appointed lead coach for 2020, will take that role in 2021.