BRITISH SWIMMING UNVEILS WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP SQUAD
The British Swimming squads selected for the Helsinki European
Championships (25m) in December and the Melbourne World Championships
(50m) in March have been unveiled.
A team of 30 will contest the European Championships at the
end of this year with a squad of 33 bound for the World Championships
next spring.
Athletes competing in Finland will look to end the year in
the same rich vein they have enjoyed throughout 2006 which
has delivered best results across all levels of international
competition.
And in Australia, just a year before Beijing 2008, Britain's
swimmers will be looking to send out the right message to
their rivals ahead of the Olympics.
Head Coach Ian Turner is looking forward to continuing the
good form achieved this year but expects the swimmers to use
the Europeans to prepare themselves for what he believes is
going to be a very tough World Championships.
"It's an exciting team that once again provides our
younger swimmers with the chance to gain quality experience,"
said Turner.
"The European team has been selected as a forerunner
to the World Championships so that both athletes and coaches
have the chance to put into practice in Helsinki what will
be required in Melbourne next spring.
"The World Championships will be an uncompromising meet.
Just 16 months out from the Beijing Olympics, it's going to
provide a real test to the squad and indeed the swimming world
as a whole."
In many cases the World Championships will provide Turner
and the British squad with a valuable indicator as to the
climate of world swimming with an Olympics in the not too
distant future.
"Some of the events in Melbourne will provide clear
indicators to where we stand in the world prior to an Olympics
but there will be others, as history shows us, that will fail
to give anything away," said Turner.
"It's a World Championships so therefore it's an important
meet for British Swimming but it will also have that added
bite because, as a nation, we will have to use the meet to
qualify our relay teams for the 2008 Olympics.
"It's imperative we get them right to ensure we're competing
in some of our strongest events in Beijing the following year."
The World Championship squad could also be strengthened by
distance Freestyler David Davies (City of Cardiff) as he attempts
to qualify in December after recovering from a foot infection
and subsequent surgery that kept him out of the water for
months following the Commonwealth Games this year.
The squads qualified for the events at this summer's European
Championships (50m) in Budapest as well as the concurrently
held ASA Championships.
|
