Blog 1362: J3 Prestige

After reviewing where we are as a club and the services we can offer, I have decided we now have the kind of environment where we can offer swimmers the best opportunity and pathway in the county. This means a slight change in our structure and how we feed into the County Elite squad Derventio eXcel. In no way shape or form does this lesson our support of Derventio eXcel. I fully support their program and the great results that Andi and Kim are getting there and we will continue to feed into the DX full time squad.

The J3 Prestige squad will provide the top end of J3 with better training opportunities and mean that we no longer feed DX through the DXDS squad, which is meant to provide the smaller programmes with additional hours for their swimmers.

The Criteria to receive an invite into this squad is a minimum of 4 of the following initially .

1.       Must have 90% attendance of J3 sessions

2.       Must compete in Level 1 Open Meets in a minimum of 3 events in two or more different strokes and the 200 IM

3.       Must have attended either J3 plus for a minimum period of two months or DXDS

4.       Must be a minimum of 12 years old in the midland year

5.       Within 5% of a Midland time or have finished within the Top 10 BAGCAT's at Derbyshire's.

 As with any squad the coaches will have the final say in who is invited into the squad and after the initial intake this criteria will be rigidly enforced as a minimum requirement in all 5 areas.The expectations will be high for this squad and swimmers invited to it will be on a six monthly review and must maintain the following standards to stay in it.

1.       Maintain 90 % attendance record including both mornings

2.       Maintain a focused attitude achieving at least one regional qualifying standard time.

3.       Continued progress towards times within 4% of the national qualifying standard and entry into full time DX

 The squad will include all J3 sessions, the J3 plus session, the land training session with Callum on Wednesday night (who is still the only strength and conditioning coach working with a club in the Region) and instead of training at Queen's on Sunday, the swimmers in J3 Prestige will join the Youth and Senior swimmers at Loughborough for long course training. All of this for just £50 a month.

Invites will be sent this month with swimmers starting in the new squad from November 1st.