Swimming New Zealand has just finished running five distance and age group camps which took place throughout September and October. The camps are part of the Swimming New Zealand’s High Performance Development Programme. The camps were held in Rotorua, Dunedin, Marton and Auckland.
The camps involved 150 age group swimmers and their coaches.
Some of the key goals and outcomes for New Zealand’s High Performance Development Programme include:
- New Zealand Coaches are fully educated and aware of the prerequisites needed to develop young athletes to Olympic Success.
- More programmes in New Zealand operating with HP development standards.
- Increased number of New Zealand Swimmers ranked Top 30 (2 per country) in the world at the age of 17(F) and 18 (M).
These five camps were run by Donna Bouzaid who is charge of High Performance Development and Gary Hurring who is in charge of Talent ID and Development.
The camps included guest speakers who addressed areas such as nutrition and sports psychology.
The athletes also took part in some fun dryland and team work activities. The highlight of the camp in Marton was the ‘amazing race’ around the town where swimmers had to solve clues and complete team challenges that incorporated the SNZ values of excellence, integrity and accountability.
Bouzaid was also happy with how well the coaches worked together and developed a greater understanding of long term athlete develop and programming.
New Zealand finished with two bronze at the 2014 Youth Olympic Games and one gold and one bronze at the 2015 World Junior Championships.
A document outlining the entire High Performance Development Programme can be found here.