Britain’s swimmers are ready to face the challenge of the 2015 FINA World Championships which begin this weekend at the impressive Kazan Arena in Russia.
The eight-day event runs from 2–9 August and the British team of 29 athletes features the likes of Commonwealth and European Champions Adam Peaty, Jazz Carlin, Ross Murdoch, Siobhan-Marie O’Connor and Chris Walker-Hebborn.
The team arrived in Kazan this week following a six-day preparation camp in London where a determined focus to build on the success of last summer was refined.
“We’ve arrived in Kazan off the back of a camp in London that was relaxed but focused on the job at hand,” explained British Swimming Head Coach Bill Furniss.
“The team handled the journey to Kazan very well indeed and our first couple of days in Russia have been excellent. Everyone has recovered from the travel, the facilities are superb and our hosts in the village have been very accommodating.
“The team is in a great place – the duration of the camp was perfect and now everyone is ready to move on and can’t wait for the competition to get underway.”
The team goes into the championships with great confidence off the back of a successful 2014 but also due to strong early season form in 2015 and a belief derived from a collective hard work ethic.
“The big thing for me, when looking at our overall performance, will be the percentage of people who swim their season best performance at this competition,” explained Furniss. “That is the challenge as I think this is where we’ve struggled at some of the big competitions in the past.
“We didn’t achieve a big enough percentage of season best performances in London in 2012 but we improved on that in Barcelona in 2013 and then increased this massively last year at the Commonwealth Games and European Championships.
“A real litmus test for me will be the number of athletes who can achieve this at these World Championships. Success is if we can get a good majority of our team swimming the best they’ve swum this season.”
Furniss has been impressed with the attitude and application of the athletes on the team with some of them facing their first major international competition.
“It’s quite a new team because, while we have some experience at this level on this team, we’ve also got a crop of new swimmers and that’s really promising,” said Furniss.
“This is an exciting time for British Swimming and we’ll know a lot more about where we are in our development cycle at the by the end of this competition.”
The British Swimming Team comprises:
Men
Adam Barrett, Nick Grainger, James Guy, Calum Jarvis, Thomas Laxton, Stephen Milne, Ross Murdoch, Roberto Pavoni, Adam Peaty, Ben Proud, Robbie Renwick, Duncan Scott, Liam Tancock, Chris Walker-Hebborn, Dan Wallace, Andrew Willis
Women
Jazz Carlin, Eleanor Faulkner, Fran Halsall, Rachael Kelly, Jemma Lowe, Hannah Miley, Siobhan-Marie O’Connor, Lauren Quigley, Molly Renshaw, Elizabeth Simmonds, Jessica Thielmann, Rebecca Turner, Aimee Willmott
Swimming news courtesy of British Swimming.