FINA To Launch First Ever “Youth Programme” at Doha World Championships in 2014

Update: USA Swimming says that at this time they are not planning to participate in this event.

For the first time ever, FINA is launching a “Youth Programme” ahead of the 2014 World Short Course Championships in December.

The event will run from December 3rd-7th, just ahead of the start of the World Championships, and is a revolutionary event that seems to be aimed at helping young swimmers from around the world take the next step into the senior levels.

The program will expect around 350 swimmers from ages 14-16 participating in a five-day course. Countries are allowed to send up to 2 athletes, 1 boy and 1 girl born in 1999 and 2000. Every country sending athletes must also send a national-level coach to accompany the athletes, and countries are expected to send their top available junior swimmers.

Only federations that are participating in the World Short Course Championships are eligible to send athletes.

The most important benefit of the program is that FINA is providing travel support in the form of round trip plane tickets and will be housed in the four-star rated EZDAN Hotel & Suites for 6 nights with full board. In other words, participants will be provided a full ride to the elite-level camp.

This program might be the best thing FINA has done in a long, long time to help develop swimming around the world. While swimmers in countries like the United States and Australia have ample opportunities for world class camps and coaching, athletes in many other countries do not. That’s why so often, we see athletes in many countries show some promise as teenagers, and have development completely stall out thereafter – hard work and talent can only advance so far in the elite levels of sport before precision coaching and scientific understanding must begin to take the next steps.

This program could help push those athletes to the next level, especially if FINA can get buy-in from the major nations like the United States and Australia, who don’t necessarily need the camp for their own development. With FINA picking up the bill even for the wealthier federations, there’s more incentive to take advantage of the opportunity.

Further, it’s an important step in the development of coaches as well. Coaches from smaller federations like those in Africa, Central Asia, and Central America could benefit greatly from the knowledge of those in East Asia, North America, and Oceania, and would be able to spread that knowledge in their home countries beyond just the two participating athletes. Even from the powerhouses, like Japan, China, Australia, the U.S., South Africa, and Brazil, the exchange of ideas can be invaluable. I’m sure the Americans would love to know why the Chinese are so good in the women’s butterflies, and the Chinese and Japanese would love to learn more about the success of the Brazilians and the Americans and the Australians in the sprint freestyles.

FINA can also benefit from this program as well, and why shouldn’t they? That would complete the triangle and make this a winning event all the way around. Attaching this youth camp to the World Short Course Championships will, for many countries, encourage more sentimental and emotional connection to the meet, which is currently a ghostly undervaluation in importance as compared to its long course sibling in the summer.

With costs that should easily exceed $1 million, though perhaps there is some support from the oil-rich Qatari government. Sustaining the program in the long term financially will be a big challenge, as having the travel and board costs of the participants covered is key to the program’s success.

The final component, as alluded to above, is total buy-in from around the world. The smaller countries need to be willing to send the athletes, and the bigger countries need to be willing to send the athletes and coaches, all with a sense of “the greater good” and the belief that swimming is stronger as the world becomes more competitive.

To read more details about the program, click here.