Youth Olympic Games announced

[Taxiandbank]

http://www.olympic.org/uk/news/olympic_news/full_story_uk.asp?id=2143

[Silver Fox]

Any idea of ages for the Youth Olympic Games ?
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[Taxiandbank]

Any idea of ages for the Youth Olympic Games ?
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.....would have a different character, and target youngsters aged between 14 and 18, adapted to the different sports.

[Gina]

Yet another major meet for 18 and unders. Why can't there be a National B team for the 2nd tier of SENIOR swimmers or any athlete for that matter? For swimming it would get some of the older swimmers on the fringe to push and put pressure on the A team. A bit off topic but I keep finding funding for 18 and unders frequently but really it's the over 18s that need support as they start to take over financially.

[selkie]

The World University Games kind of fill the National B team or National C team niche for a number of countries.

[Curly]

But only if you are at University! And British Swimming make the qualifying times and conditions so tough that you virtually have to be on the National A team to book your place. Presumably the team that France bought over for the British Swimming Champs must have been their B team as their A team were at the Worlds. I totally agree with Gina - we need to encourage 'older' swimmers to stay in the sport both financially and by giving them goals.

[lane4]

but really it's the over 18s that need support as they start to take over financially.
Okay so how would you (and Curly) administer this if you were the person in charge? Which over 18's? All of them? Or would you have criteria? If so, what? How much would you give them? Where would the money come from? What other things would you cut back on in order to fund more over 18's? To what end would the money be given? Olympic medals? Commonwealth final? National qualifying time? Who would be accountable? If a swimmer got funding but never improved what would you do?

[Curly]

Not sure I have the practical answer to many of these but I'll give it a go.

I think the main aim should be to encourage swimmers that could make the national A team to continue swimming - although youngsters obviously improve more, older swimmers do also continue to improve - possibly with a change of club or coach, maybe at University, so we want to keep them swimming.

Criteria could be along the lines of over 18 (or whenever youth funding stops) but within qualifying times (not NQTs but specific qualifying times for this funding).

I don't know where the money comes from but it does seem that some of the youth swimmers do receive a lot of money (Lizzie S, Fran H and probably quite a few others) - as well as from lottery funding, they receive Kelloggs money, sponsorship etc - more than they need to live on, particularly as they already live at home. I don't resent this for one minute, but just wonder if it could be more evenly spread out.

I have to mention, many of the younger swimmers do get funding, don't improve and drop out - they are not penalised so I don't know why the older ones should be.

I recognise that it would be extremely difficult to administer this but I think other countries must manage - as I mentioned before, the French must have put in a sort of B team to our Champs.

Please don't bite my head off - I'm just putting some very amateur answers to your direct questions!

[Gina]

Yes I have seen the qualifying standards for the university games and they are very similar to the ones for the World and Olympics!

With regards to funding, what I am talking about it the funding from places such as Sport Aid and a local one for me the West London Sports Trust (i think that's the name). My first inquiry into any kind of funding was to my local council who turned around and said they would match anything sport aid would give me. They were pretty sure I, as a 22 yr old, could receive something, but SA said you have to be 18 or under to qualify so I was out of that! The WLST was exactly the same with age. I can understand that some parents need finanical help as sport is so finanically demanding but to cap the age at 18 is silly. What I don't understand is when an athlete who is clearly well off gets funding to spend when they don't even have any thing important to spend it on! I'm not talking thousands, but a few hundred is more than enough to help out with the high costs of fees, travel costs, hotel expenses etc that mst over 18s have to pay for. I've found that in the last few months my income has almost halved but my performances have improved dramatically. I am almost near siding with a certain Welsh sprinter, if only he'd stop complaining about the early morning finals etc. It was a nice 2 hour lie in getting up at 6.30am!

Now on to how I would administer the funding to over 18s. Well I'm not sure how the younger age groups are funded, but I would firstly look at times. I have seen many selection policies that have B times and I think that if a swimmer achieves the B time and they have a good cause to need financial aid they should get some. Swimmers who are knocking on the door to selection to the Seinor GB team are so important. A great performance from a B team member puts pressure on the A team members and they then have to raise their game to stay on their team.

I am now looking forward and have started planning what I'm going to do in a year or so time when I finish with my swimming. I'm looking forward to all that money I can make from working proper hours!

[Gina]

although youngsters obviously improve more, older swimmers do also continue to improve - possibly with a change of club or coach, maybe at University, so we want to keep them swimming

I've always thought that a swimmer follows a typical path of improvement (with a few exceptions of course). The ages vary from person to person but the general idea is as follow ...

Up to 15-17 swimmers improve at an equal but fast rate each year.

Between 15-18 for girls and 17-19 for boys you get the time in their lives when they stop growing upwards, start to grow outwards (and put on weight), have pressure from school etc and their times tend to plateau.

After 18-19 you get the bulid up of momentum and times start to drop at a faster rate. I put a lot of this down to growing understanding of the sport from inside themselves and not just the coach.

[water babe]

Not sure I have the practical answer to many of these but I'll give it a go.

I think the main aim should be to encourage swimmers that could make the national A team to continue swimming - although youngsters obviously improve more, older swimmers do also continue to improve - possibly with a change of club or coach, maybe at University, so we want to keep them swimming.

Criteria could be along the lines of over 18 (or whenever youth funding stops) but within qualifying times (not NQTs but specific qualifying times for this funding).

I don't know where the money comes from but it does seem that some of the youth swimmers do receive a lot of money (Lizzie S, Fran H and probably quite a few others) - as well as from lottery funding, they receive Kelloggs money, sponsorship etc - more than they need to live on, particularly as they already live at home. I don't resent this for one minute, but just wonder if it could be more evenly spread out.

I have to mention, many of the younger swimmers do get funding, don't improve and drop out - they are not penalised so I don't know why the older ones should be.

I recognise that it would be extremely difficult to administer this but I think other countries must manage - as I mentioned before, the French must have put in a sort of B team to our Champs.

Please don't bite my head off - I'm just putting some very amateur answers to your direct questions!

Lizzie and Fran receive lottery funding due to their World ranking ,even though they live at home I am sure they still have living costs.We don't know their families financial situation it may be that they would struggle just as much as the older swimmers without this funding .I do know Fran lives a distance from Liverpool so her travel costs when she is home will be high.If they can attract sponsors good on them! it may help raise the profile of swimming.

[Curly]

I didn't mean that they don't deserve to receive lottery funding, nor was I implying that they didn't need some money to continue swimming - I certainly think they do deserve money, and also I was just using them as examples - there are plenty of other younger swimmers who also receive money. All I was saying is that perhaps it could be better shared out to give older swimmers a chance to improve too rather than stopping funding dead at 17/18 unless you are on the National team. This is in the hope that British Swimming would benefit from older swimmers coming through to improve the standard of the team - not just relying on the younger ones.

[water babe]

I didn't mean that they don't deserve to receive lottery funding, nor was I implying that they didn't need some money to continue swimming - I certainly think they do deserve money, and also I was just using them as examples - there are plenty of other younger swimmers who also receive money. All I was saying is that perhaps it could be better shared out to give older swimmers a chance to improve too rather than stopping funding dead at 17/18 unless you are on the National team. This is in the hope that British Swimming would benefit from older swimmers coming through to improve the standard of the team - not just relying on the younger ones.

I understand and agree with what you are saying Curly.I think I read an article last year in a swimming times that explaind how the lottery funding is allocated,if I remember rightly UK Sport have a big say in who the lottery funding goes to.British Swimming must also get other money but I am not sure of all the in's and out's,think it may have been discussed on here before.
But I do know that once a swimmer receives a certain amount of personnal sponsorship it is taken account of against their lottery funding,it would be great if more swimmers could get some good sponsorship deals this may then mean more money could be spent on other swimmers,but these deals will only come with results,it's a vicious circle!

[selkie]

Funding at the University level would seem to be makesense and be reasonably affordable. It seems silly to say that if you aren't world class by 18, it's not worth spending money to see if you will be when so many swimmers don't make the jump from national level to world level until they're 20+.

But then I come from a country where there's a pretty comprehensive funding mechanism in place through the universities already that's distinct from the funding USA swimming provides, and there's the luxury of having a school funding someone like Lelia Vaziri, who never made a national junior team, and was never quite in the top group of prospects until she finally made the National B team at 21 last summer. And then this spring she put another American name on theWorld Record board.

[Gina]

But then I come from a country where there's a pretty comprehensive funding mechanism in place through the universities already that's distinct from the funding USA swimming provides, and there's the luxury of having a school funding someone like Lelia Vaziri, who never made a national junior team, and was never quite in the top group of prospects until she finally made the National B team at 21 last summer. And then this spring she put another American name on theWorld Record board.

From what I've heard, American Football funds most of the other sports. The amount of money made from crowds at games at the major universities is huge. I know from being at a sports uni that no one really cares about the sport that went on their even with about 3 or 4 football teams. What I thought would be interesting is if the Premiership football teams adopted a local swimming club and funded them, but that would never happen. Talking about football clubs, my lovely Man Utd apparently received lottery funding for one of their gyms. Not sure if it was for the players or the public but I'm sure Utd could have stumped up the £30,000 I was told they received!

[Stevie_k]

Talking about football clubs, my lovely Man Utd apparently received lottery funding for one of their gyms. Not sure if it was for the players or the public but I'm sure Utd could have stumped up the £30,000 I was told they received!

I must say i am shocked. This is one of the most disturbing things ive ever heard in my life.

I hope its not true.

[selkie]

From what I've heard, American Football funds most of the other sports. The amount of money made from crowds at games at the major universities is huge. I know from being at a sports uni that no one really cares about the sport that went on their even with about 3 or 4 football teams. What I thought would be interesting is if the Premiership football teams adopted a local swimming club and funded them, but that would never happen. Talking about football clubs, my lovely Man Utd apparently received lottery funding for one of their gyms. Not sure if it was for the players or the public but I'm sure Utd could have stumped up the £30,000 I was told they received!

The top 30-40 University Ameircan football teams make money for their athletic departments. Once you get past them, there are plenty of football teams that persistently run million dollar deficits every year. And plenty of swim programs that have been eliminated at the varsity level to prop up said deficit-running football teams. (Lots of American swimmers are pretty bitter about that)

The sport that is consistently high profit is men's basketball. Even an average program will play before 10,000 paying fans, and the NCAA has a billion dollar television deal for the men's basketball tournament, which it divies up among the schools involved. Plus, it's a much cheaper sport to sponsor- only 12-15 players instead of 90+ football players, and much lower overhead per player as well.

[fast-swimmer]

Has it been decided where they will be held??