Youth teams come together in camp ahead of pinnacle events

The recent long weekend provided no time off for twelve of our young up and coming swim stars as they began their preparations for the Junior Pan Pacific Championships and Youth Olympic Games in August this year.

The four day National Youth Camp gave the swimmers and their coaches a chance to come together for some team bonding and help in planning their training programmes as they look towards the two youth pinnacle events for 2014.

During the weekend the group saw presentations from High Performance Sport New Zealand (HPSNZ) on athlete life, physiology, race analysis and travel planning as an athlete.

The group also heard from two Swimming New Zealand (SNZ) staff members, Performance Coach David Lyles and High Performance Director Luis Villanueva.

SNZ High Performance Development Coach Donna Bouzaid said it was great to see the swimmers training outside of their comfort zone, the team commitment in their relay session and the team togetherness.

Part of their team bonding over the weekend was the swimmers taking part in a master chef challenge which the SNZ staff had to judge.

Bouzaid saying it was good to see how well the swimmers could cook.

The group attending said it was great to be able to come together and talk about what we are working towards and being able to go over goals for the meets and what we want to achieve.

The swimmers will now work hard in their home programmes and will attend a training camp with the Australian Youth Olympic and Junior Pan Pacs team at the end of the month before competing in August.

The camp was held at the Millennium Institute of Sport and Health (MISH) and at Northern Arena, Silverdale.

Swimmers and coaches at the camp were:

Swimmers:
Liam Albery                                     Capital, Wellington
Bradlee Ashby                                  Fairfield, Waikato
Rebekah Bradley                              United, Auckland
Carter Edgecombe                            Fairfield, Waikato
Gabrielle Fa’amausili                         Roskill, Auckland
Jacob Garrod                                    North Shore, Auckland
Bobbi Gichard                                   Greendale, Hawkes Bay
Dominic Mildon                                  Howick Pakauranga, Auckland
George Schroder                               Aquagym, Canterbury
Andrew Trembath                              Neptune, Otago
Ben Walsh                                         Porirua City, Wellington
Julian Weir                                        Aquabladz, New Plymouth

Coaches:
Craig Albery                                    Capital, Wellington
Gennadiy Labara                              Otago
Josh Munro                                      Roskill, Auckland
Sue Southgate                                 Aquabladz, New Plymouth
Nevill Sutton                                    Porirua City, Wellington
Jana Wilkitzki                                   Howick Pakauranga, Auckland