Success in the water: Leeds City Council’s aquatic training schemes celebrate success on all fronts

 Across the three squads, swimming, synchronised swimming and diving, there has been representation in every major international aquatic competition, with Leeds based athletes also being a dominant force at national, regional and county level competitions throughout the year.

Highlights include three gold medals at the commonwealth games for diving athletes, Jack Laugher, Anthony Hardin and Daniel Goodfellow, as well as a gold medal for Leah Schlosshan at the 2022 European junior swimming championships and ten gold medals at the British Summer Championships.

This season’s success has been built on the great work undertaken by the aquatic training schemes' coaching staff and Active Leeds. It has also cemented Leeds as the leading aquatics programme in Great Britain, with the scheme providing more athletes to Great Britain's world class programmes and the England national performance and talent programmes across all three aquatic disciplines than any other aquatic programme.

Due to the excellent environment and training provided by the Leeds aquatic training schemes there is now a clear pathway for children in Leeds, from learning to swim through to the Olympic games for swimming, divining and synchronised swimming.

Councillor Salma Arif, executive member for public health and active lifestyles, said: “I would like to offer a huge congratulations to all the athletes in the three aquatic training schemes' squads for such a successful year.

“As a council we are extremely proud of our city’s swimming and diving squads and it fantastic to see the hard work of athletes, coaches and Active Leeds staff pay off this year, with such great results in swimming pools across Yorkshire, Great Britain and the World.”

Commenting on the support offered by Leeds City Council’s aquatic training schemes and her season Leah Schlosshan, gold medal winner at the European junior swimming championship in Bucharest, said:

“It was both my best and possibly toughest season yet, not only was it my first full season after covid, but I also tried training more hours to replicate a senior athlete's program.

“The consistent block of work I completed from January-June gave me confidence that I had the potential to win a medal at the European juniors. It was fantastic to win a medal and it was a great reward to know that all the hard work you put in really does make a difference.

"It has been such a successful year for all the squads in the programme and it has been great to share it with all the other athletes across the training squads. I would also like to extend my sincere thanks to all the coaches, Active Leeds staff and the council for the support they have offered us in and out of the pool.”

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