In a year that introduced us all to Zoom, Microsoft Teams and various ways of online working it seemed only right to celebrate the best use of staying connected virtually among our aquatic disciplines.
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The Virtual Event of the year award is brought to you in partnership with Lebara, the Official Telecommunications Partner of British Swimming.
The finals of Lebara's Race the World by British Para-Swimming, which are set air in a live streamed first on the 16 December, is a fantastic example of how powerful a tool technology has been this year to create opportunities and generate connectivity amongst teams - and this award aims to highlight a number of the aquatics activations that have done just that!
Diving Live @ Five
When lockdown began at the end of March, British Diving Pathways and Swim England Talent combined forces to deliver Live@5 - a daily Mon-Friday technical and physical programme for the junior, youth and talent squads.
Each day featured themed content including; core conditioning, circuit training, yoga, and technical focus', during a time at which athletes were unable to access the pool. That online training is already proving dividends, whilst the support continues online for those at the younger end of the pathway.
#MyJapaneseAdventure Virtual Cooking
Around 80 individuals from across the aquatics disciplines were involved in the online event, hosted in partnership with Yutaka and ConnectwithJapan, and were guided through the steps to making an authentic chicken katsu curry over Zoom.
The authentic cooking session offered a twist of Japanese culture ahead of next year's Olympic and Paralympic Games, with athletes in attendance describing it as a fun evening that brought the teams together.
The Hive
The annual British Para-Swimming Conference headed online this year for the first time with athletes, coaches, parents, team staff, stakeholders and guests coming together to look at the year ahead, discuss project updates, programme operations and strategic priorities as well as delivering a series of engaging and interactive sessions on effective communications and culture. Guest speakers included David Wiseman and Brian Loeffler. Brian’s talk was also part of a series of podcasts being delivered by the programme for coaches.
This was in addition to the 156 hours of virtual support, encompassing a whopping 162 different activities offered to programme athletes during the first six months of the pandemic spent largely out of the pool.
Voting has now closed, please refer to the main 2020 awards page for results information.