MARCH 28 - BRITISH SWIMMING today launched a major recruitment drive to ensure it gives itself the best chance of success in the 2012 Olympics.
The governing body will be recruiting a new British head coach and development coach, sports science and sports medicine manager, open water
performance manager and several head coaches based within a new network of training centres across Britain.
British Swimming national performance director Michael Scott said he is looking for the highest-calibre of candidates to fill the positions to collectively provide an enhanced system of support for athletes, coaches and programmes at the World Class level throughout Britain.
Scott said: "What we are planning is a major re-engineering of British Swimming operations.
"Our direction going forward will focus on providing greater interaction and support between the national programme and the athletes and coaches in their daily training environment, which
will be driven by the new head coach and development coach.
"These coaching positions are designed for those of the highest-calibre and they'll need knowledge, experience, dedication and a real passion for the sport to continue to take British Swimming forward.
"Their remit will be to get out there and support coaches with athletes on the World Class Programme to assist with the on-going development.
"They'll work with targeted programmes and athletes to ensure their needs are met so they have the opportunity to concentrate solely on excelling
"There are two key factors to this role.
"The head coach will lead the British teams to the major senior, international events such as the World Championships, European Championships and, of course, the home Olympics in 2012 which offers a once in a lifetime opportunity.
"Away from the competition environment, the head coach will set the technical standards for British Swimming.
"They'll be responsible for mentoring the coaches working within the intensive training centres as well as other key coaches in Britain.
"It's definitely not a hands-on coaching role, it's a very different approach to that which British Swimming has adopted in recent times.
"This role will be about ensuring the centre's within the programme are all able to work towards the same goal in a world class environment.
"And given that the British Swimming programme is world class we will be looking at a world class coach to undertake this important position and are inviting the best possible candidates to apply."
Both the head coach and development coach roles will link together with the work of the home nations and will be complimentary to what is already being undertaken by Scotland, Wales and England.
These two roles will also integrate with work that will be done within the intensive training centre network when they become operational and coaches are being sought to head-up these programmes.
British Swimming is moving towards the creation of a complete support package available to coaches and athletes and this will include a manager of sports science and sports medicine.
Scott said: "We are now close to bringing online a number of intensive training centres throughout Britain and we need to make sure the environment we're creating in these centre's is world class.
"The sports science manager will work with a team of sports scientists to help to deliver this.
"They'll be working directly with the swimmers and coaches to make sure their requirements are met in a one-stop-shop scenario where support across areas such as physiology, biomechanics,
nutrition, strength and conditioning are met.
"It's about knowledgeable and experienced people getting out there and supporting swimmers on a regular basis at both podium and development level.