Changes ensure a bright future for Eastbourne Swimming Club

Eastbourne Swimming Club have made ‘amazing’ improvements over the last year and are ‘always looking for new members’.

In January 2017, the club made wholesale changes to its structure with Adrian Smith becoming head coach, James Nock taking over as head of performance and Adrian Wright being named squad coach.

Working alongside Wendy Pritchard, masters coach, and the ESC teaching team, these new integral members have helped to rebuild and restructure the club.

Simon Bandy, a committee member, is delighted with the progress made.

He said, “It’s changed amazingly. The ethos has changed dramatically. There’s very much a team spirit now with more and more parents getting involved which is what we need as a club to help get things moving properly. It’s completely different to how it used to be.

“There’s very much a professional attitude to it now. They have a real target in mind which is great.”

In February 2017, the club’s competitive squads were restructured to bring a more dynamic training programme into place. A full year of training programme was designed to include full details of energy levels used in the sessions, swimmers were educated into an understanding of energy systems used in training and how to measure their performances against these targets. A full years gala programme was put into place and all training designed to meet the requirements of that gala structure.

The club recently competed in the County Championships at K2 Leisure Centre in Crawley in which several gold medals and personal bests were achieved.

However, Mr Bandy believes more progress can be made, with the national level of the sport firmly in his sights. He added: “We did very well (at the County Championships). We had some gold medals and a lot of personal bests. We had several people in finals so it went really well. We want to start moving up. We’ve got a few regional swimmers now and it will be lovely to get a few more and start to look at national levels as well.

“The diving are doing well too. It goes (hand in hand) with our community work, teaching kids to swim, making sure they are water safe with survival classes.

“We’re trying to cover as broad a spectrum as possible.

“The competition side of things is important but it is only one part of where the club wants to develop.”

The club’s next competition is on March 17, in the Clubs’ Championships, and have galas in Littlehampton and Gillingham planned for the next few months.

Mr Bandy stressed that they are always looking for new members, with places available for people of all abilities. We’re always looking for more swimmers,” he said. “Because we’re a community club, we go right the way through from people learning to people right up in our upper squads that are hitting regional levels.

“We’ve got just under 200, if you’re including the ones that are capable of entering the galas. Some of them are still improving and it’s in their mandate to be in the squad for the galas and see their progression through.

“The outlook for the club is very positive and we have the correct infrastructure to make Eastbourne Swimming Club an extremely successful force.” www.eastbourneswimmingclub.org/