Open Water Swimming is for Everyone!

As the temperatures in this fair country at long last rise, your thoughts might be turning to open water swimming.  If they do that’s great.  If they don’t how about looking at your local open water venue and thinking about taking your swimmers?   Most venues will start to open up in April and the water temperatures normally start to rise from May onwards.

If you are a club or coach you will need to make sure you have someone suitably qualified to take the swimmers out of the pool and into this new and exciting environment. You have several options to make this happen:

1. Ask the venue if they provide qualified coaching and ‘hire’ a coach
2. Enrol the coach on an open water coaching course

These courses are for anyone with an interest in open water who holds a level 2 teaching qualification or a level 2/3 coaching qualification.  You can enrol at IOSonline by searching for a coaching course near you or ask your Club Development Officer for details.

If you are a swimmer, why not look at The London and South East open water championships and think about entering.  It’s useful to make sure you get some practice swimming in open water first so ask your coach how you can do this.  You don’t need qualifying times and the distances you swim are not usually more than you will have swam in a pool training session.  And remember if you finish in the top three in your age group you will qualify for the National Open Water Championships.  

NB: All Kent swimmers can enter either Championships, but please note that Kent London swimmers must enter the London Championships and Kent Rural swimmers must enter the South East Championships to qualify for the National Open Water Championships. 

If you’re not sure about competing you can always have a fun dip in an organised open water session near you.  Many venues now have wetsuits to hire but if not you canalso hire wetsuits online.

For younger swimmers have a look at the Swim Safe sessions which will give you a fun introduction to swimming safely in open water - they are being arranged in Margate from 20 July to 31 August.

If you have any questions as a club or coach please feel free to contact your club officers or Karen Crabtree (Kent's Open Water Manager) who will be able send you more information.

And keep up-to-date with Open Water Swimming in Kent by using the Open Water tab at the top of this page.