World Championship medallist Cassie Patten will be in action at the British Championships (50m) just one week after claiming silver at her first major senior international.
The 20-year-old, who won silver over 10km at the World Championships in Melbourne this week, will join more than 600 competitors - including World Championship team-mate Keri-Anne Payne and a delegation of over 40 swimmers from France - at the Manchester Aquatics Centre for the six-day Championships which kick off on Monday (26 March).
And with a new format to replicate conditions athletes can expect at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, finals and semi finals will be held in the morning (8am), with heats in the afternoon (4pm).
As Britain’s cream of the crop get action underway in the pool in Melbourne at the FINA World Championships, the next generation of athletes will be battling it out for the titles in Manchester, with younger swimmers also hoping to achieve qualification times for the European Youth Olympics and European Junior Championships which take place this summer.
A 5km event has been added to the British Championship programme to allow athletes to qualify for a variety of open water events, including the European Junior Open Water Championships and the Festival of Open Water Swimming.
British Swimming Director of World Class Programmes John Atkinson believes that with the top ranked swimmers out the country, the British Championships provide swimmers with an opportunity to post fast times and gain podium experience.
“Swimmers at the British Championships have the chance to stand up and make the most of the opportunities on offer next week,” he said. “The senior athletes have the opportunity to post fast times to get onto world rankings and qualify for the summer meets, while the juniors will be looking to gain qualification times and increase their experience at a major domestic Championship.”
“With finals in the morning, the challenge for the swimmers is to make sure they can recover sufficiently between evening heats and morning finals and get up at an appropriate time to race at their best.
“Previously, we’ve selected athletes from evening finals and then expected them to repeat those times in morning heats at major internationals. By holding the finals in the morning, it shows athletes how fast they will have to swim in the heats to make the finals at this summer’s meets.”
According to Atkinson, the inclusion of the French athletes and the fact they can now reach the finals will be a real boost for the British swimmers still in the country.
“The French were looking for a meet appropriate for their swimmers that hadn’t made it to the World Championships,” he explained. “They chose to come to Manchester, which will lift the standard of the event for our swimmers and make the meet international without them having to leave the country.”
Britain’s top disability swimmers will also be testing the water at the Championships, with multi-disability heats and finals integrated into the programme. For the 18 athletes competing at the Visa Paralympic World Cup in Manchester in May, it will provide the ideal opportunity to gauge their progress as they prepare for the biggest international disability swim meet of the year.
-ENDS-
The British Swimming Championships (50m) take place at the Manchester Aquatics Centre from 26 March to 1 April.
For more information contact British Swimming media officer Amanda Smith on 01509 632238, 07876 652 318 or email amanda.smith@swimming.org
British Swimming is the National Governing Body for Swimming, Diving, Synchronised Swimming, Water Polo and Open Water in Great Britain. It is responsible internationally for the high performance representation of the sport. The members of British Swimming are the three Home Countries national governing bodies of England (Amateur Swimming Association), Scotland (Scottish Amateur Swimming Association) and Wales. (Welsh Amateur Swimming Association) British Swimming seeks to enable its athletes to achieve gold medal success at the Olympics, Paralympics, World Championships and Commonwealth Games.
www.britishswimming.org
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