A group of Water Polo players have just returned from training and competing in Greece as part of their apprenticeship in sporting excellence with the England Talent Team.

The 12 girls and 14 boys are enrolled in the Advanced Apprenticeship in Sporting Excellence (AASE) programme that aims to help young people excel in sport (their main career goal), while continuing with their education.

The girls, despite an early morning start from Gatwick and with only an hour’s preparation time locally, took on a local Greek club narrowly losing 15-13 in the match.

Unfortunately, the Greek championships meant that the girls had no further games, although their hosts went on to win the Greek Championship finals two days after their narrow win.

The boys won all of their four games during their stay, including a tough encounter with junior members of the Partizan Belgrade Water Polo Club, who were also holding a training camp in Greece.  Partizan are regarded as one of the best and most famous club sides in the world.

David White, Team Manager, said: “Both teams worked hard and gained a great deal of experience, throughout their camps.”   

The athletes competing were:
Joel Abbot Invicta / Worthing
Alan Benton Invicta
Oliver Bray Invicta
Shaun Greatorex Castleford
Andrew McGinty City of Manchester
Joseph O’Regan City of Manchester
Marc Robinson Lancaster
Dean Smith City of Manchester
Ziggy Tate Invivta
Conor Dean City of Manchester
Michael Grantham Castleford
Alastair Hardinge Worthing
Scott Martin Invicta / Worthing
Ben Richardson  Walsall

Georgina Dutton Sheffield
Ripley Fidler Sheffield
Amelia Gale Leeds
Emma Griffths Sheffield
Emily Naughton Sheffield
Victoria Vallance Sheffield
Lucinda Wannop Lancaster / City of Manchester
Kathryn Fowler Solihull
Amy Furness City of Manchester
Hayley Langbridge Liverpool
Lauren McGinty City of Manchester
Lauren Whitney City of Manchester

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Note to editors: AASE is a Government funded initiative that has been designed to meet the needs of young people (aged 16-18) who have the realistic potential to achieve excellence in their sport and are seeking to perform at the highest level as their main career goal, whilst continuing with their education. 

Notionally taking two years to complete, the AASE framework will provide for the first time a structured national training and development route across all sports for talented young athletes, many of whom may go to represent their country on the world stage.

The apprenticeship is the first to offer elite and potentially elite athletes to achieve proper recognition of the skills, knowledge and understanding they are developing/gaining in their quest for excellence.

For more information contact the ASA PR Manager Sharon Rose on 01509 632262, 07876 652318 or email sharon.rose@swimming.org

The ASA is the English National Governing Body for Swimming, Diving, Water Polo, Open Water, and Synchronised Swimming. It organises competition throughout England, establishes the Laws of the Sport and operates comprehensive certification and education programmes for Teachers, Coaches and Officials as well as its renowned Learn To Swim Awards scheme. The ASA supports 1,220 affiliated swimming clubs through a National/Regional/County structure. The ASA aims to ensure everybody has an opportunity to learn to swim.

About British Gas
British Gas, the biggest energy supplier in the country, has the lowest carbon intensity of any of the major UK energy suppliers in terms of tonnes of CO2 emitted per megawatt hour of electricity supplied to customers.  The company is one of the biggest investors in renewable power generation, principally offshore wind. Its recently completed Lynn and Inner Dowsing development, off the Lincolnshire coast, is the UK's largest offshore wind development. British Gas is committed to energy efficiency.  Our Energy Savers Report provides free expert advice on how you can cut energy use in the home and, in turn, save money.  So far, the report has shown over 2 million people how they could make an average saving of £175 a year.  To complete a report go to www.britishgas.co.uk/energy-efficiency/energy-savers-report

About Kellogg's
The Kellogg Company was founded in 1906 and today produces 40 different cereals including popular brands such as Special K, Cornflakes and Coco Pops, and 56 different snacks including brands such as Nutri-Grain and Special K snacks. Kellogg's has been a partner of the ASA and British Swimming for 13 years, sponsoring the Kellogg's ASA Awards and enabling over 50,000 people to take up swimming as part of an active lifestyle.

About Speedo®
The world’s leading swimwear brand, Speedo® is passionate about life in and around the water, creating revolutionary new technologies, designs and innovations. Supporting swimming from grass-roots through to elite level, including the phenomenal Michael Phelps, Speedo® is owned by Speedo Holdings B.V and distributed in over 170 countries around the world; SPEEDO, the ARROW device, FASTSKIN, LZR PULSE, SPEEDO ENDURANCE, FLIPTURNS, FASTSKINFSII, SPEEDO BIOFUSE, SWYM and LZR RACER are registered trademarks of Speedo Holdings B.V. The LZR RACER suit has worldwide design rights and patents pending.

Ninety-four top athletes from the world of aquatics – including double Olympic Gold medallist Becky Adlington – graduated from the Advanced Apprenticeship in Sporting Excellence (AASE) on Saturday 28th March.

The initiative, which aims to help young people excel in sport (their main career goal), while continuing with their education, celebrated the achievements of its first aquatic students to graduate from the programme.

The graduation ceremony, held at the Nottingham Belfry, honoured names from swimming, diving, synchronised swimming and water polo who completed the AASE programme in 2008, including synchronised swimmers Jenna Randall and Olivia Allison, who finished in 14th place overall in the duet event at the Beijing Olympics but could not attend the graduation due to training commitments.

The event, hosted by Athens 2004 Olympic Bronze Medallist, Steve Parry, also announced the five winners of the “Advanced Apprentice of the Year” awards, one for each discipline; swimming, diving, water polo, disability swimming and synchronized swimming.

Birmingham’s Kate Weaver picked up the “Advanced Apprentice of the Year Award” for swimming. Although unable to attend the ceremony, Weaver was able to express her excitement via a video message.
 “I can’t believe I’ve won,” she said. “It means quite a lot because I’ve never won anything before!”

The Advanced Apprentice of the Year for disability swimming was won by Portsmouth’s Shane Scullian, upon receiving the award he said: “I wasn’t expecting to win at all. I’m going to continue training as normal and use this as motivation to do even better in the future.”

Olympian Jenna Randall from Rushmoor was awarded the synchronised swimming “Advanced Apprentice of the Year Award’ over her duet partner Olivia Allison.
Randall said: “This means so much to me, I just want to thank everyone at British Scynchro that has helped me achieve everything in the past few years.”

Plymouth’s Sarah Barrow won the Apprentice of the Year Award in the diving category. 
“It’s nice to be recognized as the Apprentice of the Year,” she said. “There were three of us up for this award and any of us could have won.”

The Advanced Apprentice of the Year Award in water polo went to Cara Dunsbee. Upon getting the award the City of Manchester player said: “It’s quite exciting, I didn’t expect to win! Even though I don’t play anymore, this will be a reminder of everything I achieved over the past two years.”

Adlington was interviewed by Parry as part of the ceremony and spoke about the resurgence of Britain’s female swimmers.

Adlington said: “My apprenticeship with the ASA provided me with high quality training, whilst giving me the opportunity to gain qualifications at the same time.

“Winning two gold medals in Beijing and breaking a world record was the greatest achievement of my life and hopefully we’ll see many of the graduating and new AASE students competing for Great Britain over the next few years.”

ASA Programme Manager Michelle Kiff said: “The AASE Programme is the first time athletes can get rewarded for the skills they have developed during their sporting career, it is a programme that supports them in education and in the pool.
“The athletes who have graduated are our first athletes to complete the programme and it has been an exciting past two years. 
“As the programme has grown, these athletes have developed their own skills but also contributed to the development of the AASE programme as a talent pathway for new athletes joining the programme”

-ENDS-
For further details contact the ASA Media Assistant, Lauren Sanderson on 01509 632236 or email lauren.sanderson@swimming.org

About British Swimming
British Swimming is the National Governing Body for Swimming, Diving, Synchronised Swimming, Water Polo and Open Water in Great Britain.  It is responsible internationally for the high performance representation of the sport. The members of British Swimming are the three Home Countries national governing bodies of England (ASA), Scotland (Scottish ASA) and Wales. (Welsh ASA)  British Swimming seeks to enable its athletes to achieve gold medal success at the Olympics, Paralympics, World Championships and Commonwealth Games.

About British Gas
British Gas, the biggest energy supplier in the country, has the lowest carbon intensity of any of the major UK energy suppliers in terms of tonnes of CO2 emitted per megawatt hour of electricity supplied to customers.  The company is one of the biggest investors in renewable power generation, principally offshore wind. Its recently completed Lynn and Inner Dowsing development, off the Lincolnshire coast, is the UK's largest offshore wind development. British Gas is committed to energy efficiency.  Our Energy Savers Report provides free expert advice on how you can cut energy use in the home and, in turn, save money.  So far, the report has shown over 2 million people how they could make an average saving of £175 a year.  To complete a report go to www.britishgas.co.uk/energy-efficiency/energy-savers-report

About Speedo®
The world’s leading swimwear brand, Speedo® is passionate about life in and around the water, creating revolutionary new technologies, designs and innovations. Supporting swimming from grass-roots through to elite level, including the phenomenal Michael Phelps, Speedo® is owned by Speedo Holdings B.V and distributed in over 170 countries around the world; SPEEDO, the ARROW device, FASTSKIN, LZR PULSE, SPEEDO ENDURANCE, FLIPTURNS, FASTSKINFSII, SPEEDO BIOFUSE, SWYM and LZR RACER are registered trademarks of Speedo Holdings B.V. The LZR RACER suit has worldwide design rights and patents pending.

 

Athletes from the world of aquatics are being given the chance to learn more about working in the sports industry.

The ASA has joined forces with League Football Education (LFE) to support the Progression09 events, the UK’s first dedicated careers event for the sport and leisure sectors.

The events, held in conjunction with Careers in Sport and Leisure, will cater for those aquatic athletes who are looking for careers in sport – either now or in the future – and will feature over 60 exhibitors, along with guest speakers, seminars and networking opportunities.

The events are open to those who are completing or have completed the Advanced Apprenticeship in Sporting Excellence (AASE) – and the day will form part of the course evidence for current apprentices – as well as being open to current or retired professional athletes.

The Careers Events are being held in both the North and South of the country with the first – ‘Progression09 – The Northern Careers Event’ - running tomorrow (Wednesday 25th March 2009) and Thursday (26th March 2009) in the Sheffield Arena.

‘Progression09 – The Southern Careers Event’, will be held at The Madejski Stadium in Reading on Thursday 9th April. Both of these events are free to attend.
The English Institute of Sport and UK Sport will also be running Pitch2Podium Talent Assessments at the events. This will not only contribute to the development of athletes by providing benchmarking tests in strength, power, speed and endurance but may also allow athletes to find out if they have what it takes to win an Olympic medal in another sport should they not secure a spot on national teams in the future.

Michelle Kiff, the ASA’s  AASE Programme Manager said: “This is a great opportunity for any current or retired athlete to learn more about working in the sports industry and a chance to meet potential employers.

“Our athletes have great knowledge about the sport they participate in and if we can offer them career opportunities within sport once they retire from competing then this would only benefit us as sport.” 

‘Progression’ was originally developed by LFE as an umbrella strategy to help football apprentice’s successful exit and progression from the AASE programme. It has now become one of the most important initiatives in the sporting industry, extending beyond football to many other sports. 

CLICK HERE to learn more about the Progression09 events
or register your place online at: www.progression09.com/2009/visitor-registration-09 
or call the Progression team on 0845 074 0561
 
It is also possible to arrive and register on the day for the North event from 9am –  please go to ENTRANCE A of the Sheffield Arena.

Swimming’s golden girl Rebecca Adlington is to receive yet another honour – but this time for her efforts in education.

Adlington is one of 94 athletes from the world of aquatics who, on Saturday 28 March 2009, will graduate from the Advanced Apprenticeship in Sporting Excellence (AASE) – an initiative that aims to help young people to excel in sport (their main career goal) while continuing with their education.

The graduation ceremony, at the Nottingham Belfry, will also honour other names from swimming, diving, synchronised swimming and water polo who completed the AASE programme in 2008, including names such as diver Sarah Barrow who won gold at the 2008 and 2009 British Championships.

Other athletes who have graduated from the AASE programme – but cannot attend the event due to training commitments – include synchronised swimmers Jenna Randall and Olivia Allison, who finished in 14th place overall in the duet event at the Beijing Olympics.

Each discipline will also name its “Advanced Apprentice of the Year” in an Oscar-style ceremony that will see the achievements of the short-listed candidates shown to all of those attending the event.

Adlington said: “My apprenticeship with the ASA provided me with high quality training, whilst giving me the opportunity to gain qualifications at the same time.
“Winning two gold medals in Beijing and breaking a world record was the greatest achievement of my life and hopefully we’ll see many of the graduating and new AASE students competing for Great Britain over the next few years.”

ASA Programme Manager Michelle Kiff said: “The AASE Programme is the first time athletes can get reward for the skills they have developed during their sporting career, it is programme that supports them in education and in the pool.

“The athletes who have graduated are our first athletes to complete the programme and it has been an exciting past two years. 

“As the programme has grown, these athletes have developed their own skills but also contributed to the development of the AASE programme as a talent pathway for new athletes joining the programme”

The event will be hosted by Athens 2004 Olympic Bronze Medallist Steve Parry, who is now the Director of Total Swimming Ltd and a presenter with BBC Television and BBC Radio 4. And Steve Smith, Atlanta 1996 Olympic Bronze Medallist, will also give a motivational speech to the young athletes.

-ENDS-

Note to editors: The Nottingham Belfry is located on Mellors Way, Off Woodhouse Way, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, NG8 6PY, Tel: 0115 973 9393.

Journalists are welcome to attend all of the graduation ceremony by confirming their attendance by Monday 23 March 2009 to Sharon Rose, the ASA PR Manager on 07876 652318 or email sharon.rose@swimming.org

The ASA is the English National Governing Body for Swimming, Diving, Water Polo, Open Water, and Synchronised Swimming. It organises competition throughout England, establishes the Laws of the Sport and operates comprehensive certification and education programmes for Teachers, Coaches and Officials as well as its renowned Learn To Swim Awards scheme. The ASA supports 1,220 affiliated swimming clubs through a National/Regional/County structure. The ASA aims to ensure everybody has an opportunity to learn to swim.

About British Gas
British Gas, the biggest energy supplier in the country, has the lowest carbon intensity of any of the major UK energy suppliers in terms of tonnes of CO2 emitted per megawatt hour of electricity supplied to customers.  The company is one of the biggest investors in renewable power generation, principally offshore wind. Its recently completed Lynn and Inner Dowsing development, off the Lincolnshire coast, is the UK's largest offshore wind development. British Gas is committed to energy efficiency.  Our Energy Savers Report provides free expert advice on how you can cut energy use in the home and, in turn, save money.  So far, the report has shown over 2 million people how they could make an average saving of £175 a year.  To complete a report go to www.britishgas.co.uk/energy-efficiency/energy-savers-report

About Speedo®
The world’s leading swimwear brand, Speedo® is passionate about life in and around the water, creating revolutionary new technologies, designs and innovations. Supporting swimming from grass-roots through to elite level, including the phenomenal Michael Phelps, Speedo® is owned by Speedo Holdings B.V and distributed in over 170 countries around the world; SPEEDO, the ARROW device, FASTSKIN, LZR PULSE, SPEEDO ENDURANCE, FLIPTURNS, FASTSKINFSII, SPEEDO BIOFUSE, SWYM and LZR RACER are registered trademarks of Speedo Holdings B.V. The LZR RACER suit has worldwide design rights and patents pending.

About Kellogg's
The Kellogg Company was founded in 1906 and today produces 40 different cereals including popular brands such as Special K, Cornflakes and Coco Pops, and 56 different snacks including brands such as Nutri-Grain and Special K snacks. Kellogg's has been a partner of the ASA and British Swimming for 13 years, sponsoring the Kellogg's ASA Awards and enabling over 50,000 people to take up swimming as part of an active lifestyle.

Dame Kelly Holmes and TV sporting commentator, Gabby Logan, welcomed 100 athletes from the Advanced Apprenticeship in Sporting Excellence programme (AASE) to the Lawn Tennis Association’s National Tennis Centre in Roehampton to celebrate the success of the programme.

The day, which was part of the National Apprenticeships Week launched by Sir Alan Sugar, explored the future role of apprenticeships within sport and gave 10 aquatic athletes the chance to take part in workshops which included Psychology & Motivation with Guinn Batten (Olympic silver medallist rower) and Media Training with Graham Little (Sky Sports).

Dame Kelly met more than 100 AASE athletes in Roehampton where she shared invaluable knowledge about motivation, desire and communication and how those elements will benefit their sporting careers.

Commenting on the AASE programme, Dame Kelly said: “Providing young athletes with a future after sport is essential. To reach world standard you need to dedicate your whole life. When your sporting career finishes it can leave a massive gap and you are forced to refocus. The AASE programme provides athletes with the qualifications needed to develop a second career.”

Created by SkillsActive, in association with the Learning Skills Council and a number of NGBs including the ASA, the AASE programme provides a crucial second career option should an athlete fall short of their ultimate sporting goal or choose to follow an alternative career path. This enables sport to retain its young athletes at an age when the pressure of finding a career can force them to look for alternative options.

Eight other AASE apprentices competed at the Beijing Olympics and Paralympics and with 2,500 athletes now on the programme the objective is to see as many as possible in the team for London 2012.

David Sparkes, CEO of the ASA, says: “Swimming, Diving and Synchronised Swimming are specialist sports and youngsters start and specialise at a very early age. The issue facing the ASA is that when youngsters get to about 16 or 17 they face other pressures. Many want to stay swimming but feel they also need to gain qualification in case they don’t make it into the national squad, and even then their sporting career can have a very short lifespan.

“There’s been a talent pathway in swimming and diving, but there has been nothing like the AASE for synchronised swimming and water polo, so it is a unique opportunity for these sports. I think a lot of our athletes will make it through the AASE programme to the 2012 Olympics. They may not all come away with a gold, but to even qualify you need talent and passion and that’s what these AASE athletes have got.”
 
Michelle Kiff AASE Programme Manager said: “The national AASE day is a great opportunity for athletes to work with athletes from other sports and learn more about what it takes to be an elite athlete”  
 
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http://www.sportcentric.com/vmgmt/vfilemgmt/page/filedownload/1,8202,5157-51138-133378-0-file,00.pdf