squad structure

Winchester City Swimming Clubs’ Squad structure has been devised with the aim of providing every athlete in the club the opportunity to swim at their desired level whilst developing the skill sets required to become the best swimmer they can be. We want to ensure that our swimmers are exposed to an appropriate level of training in line with British Swimming and Swim England’s long term athletic development guidelines.

To become a champion swimmer, it takes an incredible amount of resilience, dedication, and commitment - all life skills that we aim to pass onto our athletes which will help them become successful both inside and outside of the pool. This is why at Winchester we consider all aspects of training, not only competition performances, but attendance, attitude and commitment to our training program is essential when it comes to our squad selection processes.

We really believe in the long-term approach and employ a progressive overload philosophy to both training and development in accordance. We have devised our approach in line with the Optimal Athlete Development Framework that has recently been introduced by British Swimming.

As well as striving to provide a world-class training environment for those individuals who want to excel and treat swimming as their primary sport, we are also very passionate about retaining young people in sport. With that in mind, we also provide other pathways and squads to give opportunity for our members who still wish to either train to compete or simply train for fitness and enjoy the social element that swimming can offer.

We aspire to become one of the leading clubs in the country and offer swimmers the best training environment optimal for their stage of development. We recognise that not every swimmer will want to, or be capable of being an Olympian, but may still have the desire to access world class coaching to maximise their potential and achieve their own individual goals. We believe that the squads we offer give every swimmer the best opportunity to do just that.

Our comprehensive swimmer pathway from learners to podiums aims to develop champions at every level. Our squad pathway is carefully designed to ensure that Winchester City swimmers can seamlessly progress through the stages of development within our ‘one club’ approach.