APPENDIX 14
Memorandum submitted by Mr Brian Brinkley
I was pleased to learn of your Committee's inquiry
into the sport of swimming. As a former British Swimming Team
Captain, Olympic and Commonwealth medallist, a professional swimming
coach and ASA Senior Tutor I am very interested in making a contribution
to the development of the sport of swimming.
Swimming is an important sport both in terms
of personal safety and as one that can provide excellent exercise
for all ages. However, there is a real need to invest in high
quality facilities that will help promote swimming as an excellent
form of exercise and that can be used to support competitive swimming
in Great Britain.
Poorly maintained buildings and poor water quality
discourage involvement in swimming, yet such problems are far
too common. Even competitive swimmers, particularly younger competitors,
can be discouraged from continuing their involvement in the sport
by these problems.
With regard to promoting swimming as an excellent
form of exercise, poor maintenance and poor water quality again
reduces the effectiveness of such promotion. In addition while
some local authorities do try to promote exercise swimming by
providing lane swimming, there is often little or no control over
those lanes and no support to help people get the best out of
their exercise. The lack of control of lanes and their limited
availability lead to faster and slower swimmers being together
in the same lanes, reducing the potential for individuals to get
the best from their exercise. Lane swimming is also often only
available in the early morning yet too late for people to swim
and then go to work. In addition there can be some midday lane
swimming sessions but again many people cannot make use of the
facility at that time.
One way forward would be to have an investment
programme to develop 50m swimming pools at universities. These
would provide high quality facilities and the investment could
be linked to partnerships between universities and major swimming
clubs. Such facilities would not only provide a base for the development
of swimming performance, but if opened to the community could
greatly enhance the access to opportunities for lane swimming
for health promotion.
It is important that any investment is made
in at least 10 universities of which possibly a majority should
be new universities and university colleges. One of the strengths
of the US University sports programmes is its availability across
all academic levels and another is the intense inter-university
competition. The new universities and university colleges in this
country provide the breadth of provision at a similar range of
academic abilities to many of those US universities and therefore
it would be important that they were strongly represented in any
investment programme.
The establishment of a high standard inter-university
competition in the UK would also help provide the competitive
edge gained by those swimmers in the US university system which
is another reason why the strategy should be to develop at least
10 universities with 50 metre swimming pools.
In the USA, the university sports programmes
also have a substantial investment in coaching and in sports science
and there is a large sports bursary programme at nearly all universities
in the USA. There is therefore the issue of whether the financial
support for coaching or sports bursaries would be available in
Great Britain.
There is however, quite a number of large swimming
clubs that already employs professional coaches. By linking those
clubs to universities then not only would the coaching be provided
for the university swimming teams but the younger club swimmers
would have access to much better facilities. As many universities
already have sports science staff, such a link between swimming
clubs and the universities would provide the sports science staff
with research opportunities and input to their courses.
It is therefore the case that resources to support
the development of competitive swimming at universities are already
at least partially available but the best cannot be obtained for
those resources as there are no facilities to help promote links
between universities and swimming clubs.
There is currently a major shortage of 50 metre
swimming pools in Great Britain compared with Australia, the US
and Western Europe. In a city and surrounding region with a population
of 300,000 typically there would be two to three indoor 50 metre
pools in Australia and the USA and close to that number in Western
Europe. The construction of 10-15 modern 50 metre swimming pools
at universities would also help overcome this shortage.
It is perhaps of note that if London ever wished
to hold the Olympic Games, not only would it need a main competition
pool, but also there would be additional pools required for the
water polo preliminary competitions. In addition there would be
an expectation that there would be 50 metre pools available for
pre-Olympic training camps for visiting national teams. A London
bid for the Olympic Games would be enhanced if it could be shown
that there was an investment programme to develop those 50 metre
pools around the country to ensure they were in place for the
Olympic Games.
What I have outlined is a model for developing
swimming in the UK that would allow the development of a US style
model with exceptional value-for money. Much of the operating
costs for coaching and sports science is already in place but
without the facilities it is impossible to build on this existing
investment. Importantly, although my interest is in the sport
of swimming, I believe this model could also be applied to many
other sports.
I realise that finding the funding to develop
a network of 50 metre swimming pools at universities will not
be easy, although the approach proposed here would have much of
the longer term support for coaches and sports science already
in place. However, strong support from the Culture, Media and
Sport Committee would encourage the development of partnerships
between universities, local authorities and swimming clubs and
may encourage potential sponsors to support such projects.
The sport of swimming would greatly benefit
from the developments proposed here and I do hope the Committee
will be able to endorse this approach.
26 November 2001
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