Competitive and educational weekend ahead at the Swim England Talent Games

The second Swim England Water Polo Talent Games event of the year takes place this weekend where we’ll crown our talent centre champions for 2024.

For the first time the event will be held at the Sandwell Aquatics Centre from Saturday 6 to Sunday 7 July.

Last year, the North and South talent centres shared the four national championships between them for both open and female teams in the U14 and U16 age groups.

This time round five talent centres are looking to take home the titles who have each recruited some of the best young players from across the country and provided them with regular training throughout the year.

Talent centres from the North West (formerly North), North East, South, London and the East centre will face off, with the East centre joining the Summer talent games for the first time.

They’ll be going head-to-head matches throughout the weekend, following on from the Spring Games where each team faced the first two of their matches.

You can follow all the scores from the weekend with our live scoreboard which contains all the results as well as the current standings heading into the final weekend.

Educational focus

Like previous Water Polo Talent Games events, the weekend has a big focus on education and development for players, coaches and parents as well as giving the athletes the chance to compete at a high level.

For players, there will be workshops both in the pool and in the classroom to help them with their development.

In the pool, female athletes will take part in an in pool training session led by Great Britain coach Nick Hume whilst the open/male athletes will be led by British coach and 2012 Olympian Sean King.

They will also be involved in a tactics workshop from former national team and talent centre head coaches as well as having a Q&A with current members of the GB Junior Women’s team who are on the next stage of the water polo talent pathway.

Parents will be able to get guidance and have each phase of that pathway explained to them by Swim England’s Water Polo Programme Lead, Craig Figes. The session will show them how the athletes can continue and develop in the sport as they get older and allow them to ask any questions.

A workshop, specifically for coaches will be led by Swim England’s coach development manager Jo John, following on from the recent Swim England Water Polo Coaching Conference, whilst they’ll also be a referees workshop led by GB Senior Women’s player and BWPL referee Katie Brown.

You can find out more about the Swim England Water Polo Talent Centre initiative here.