'New rules are ending Olympic dream for young Melton swimmers'

Tracy McGhie is angry about changes brought in last year by Swim England which she says are aimed at producing better competitors in longer distance events above 200m.

She claims this is preventing those swimmers who are good at the sprint events from becoming good enough to compete for England or Great Britain.

There are now no 50m sprint events in regional or national competitions for the 12, 13 and 14-year age groups and youngsters competing in the 15, 16, 17 year age categories groups can only qualify for the 50m event if they qualify in the longer 100m event.

Tracy points out that training schedules are very different between sprinters and longer distance swimmers and many young people do not have the capacity or the desire to train for longer hours to build up their endurance.

She agrees with British Olympic legend Adam Peaty, who voiced concern recently that young swimmers should not be getting up in the early hours to train hard enough to make regional and national selection.

Tracy told the Melton Times: “The majority of swimmers truly enjoy the sprint events, they are universally fun for swimmers and spectators, they are great for any level of swimmers to have the opportunity to comfortably compete and enjoy their sport.

“There is no doubt any young swimmers’ training should always be balanced, but exclusion of these events to affect a change in training regime is very detrimental to a large section of the swim club membership who have neither the ability, mentality, water time or aerobic endurance commitment to achieve success at longer events.”

Tracy said she had spoken to coaches at other clubs and they agreed with her misgivings about the new race distance changes.

She added: “The issue for Melton swimmers here - perhaps the top five to 10 swimmers - is it removes the aspirational goal of nationals, taking the qualification possibility too far out of reach for our top level sprint swimmers who just want to compete with their peers and be judged on merit for their chosen event.”

Some of the Melton Swimming Club’s swimmers are unhappy with the concentration on distance swimming.

Jane, who is 14, commented: “I feel excluded and devalued.

"I work hard at training and love swimming but prefer to specialise in shorter distances so now I can’t really progress.

"I am ranked highly in the county but that is as far as I can go.

"As I watch friends qualify who swim longer distances, it makes me feel upset and it makes we wonder why I bother.”

And 16-year-old Evie said: “As a sprinter, the rules of Swim England are restricting my ability to reach my full potential to compete in my best events at regional level and even target national times and it is making me feel disappointed in myself and demotivated to try.

“I am being penalised for being a sprint swimmer.”

Swim England say: “The ultimate aim to amend the events offered to promote long-term athlete development, retention of athletes and to encourage a culture change away from intensive sprinting training for younger swimmers is a reasonable one.”