British Swimming chiefs promise to make changes after Worlds
Last updated on .From the section Swimming
British Swimming's national performance director Chris Spice and head coach Bill Furniss insist they can make the changes required to win medals.
The team claimed just one medal at the recent World Championships in Barcelona - a 50m freestyle bronze for Francesca Halsall.
It was GB's lowest medals tally since the 1998 Worlds in Perth, Australia.
Furniss said: "It's been disappointing because we came here expecting to do much better than we have."
GB finished level with Finland and Trinidad & Tobago, 20th in the medal table in Barcelona.
It was the first major international meet since the new leadership team of Spice and Furniss took up their roles.
In last year's London Olympics, Team GB won just three medals when they were aiming for five.
The team may have been deprived of retired former Olympic champion Rebecca Adlington in Barcelona. Yet with her former coach, Bill Furniss, leading the national programme, hopes were high. The target was a minimum of three medals in Spain.
"It's obviously a huge disappointment," Adlington told BBC Sport. "We all wanted to see more, or expected more."
Furniss added: "We've certainly tried all week to do much better than that and we've done the best we can. It's very much an indication of where we are now.
"For the first four weeks of my job, Chris and I were looking at the restructure. We have looked at everything we do, all over Britain.
"There has been a massive amount of work to get a new performance management team in.
"Once that's over, my job will be with the coaches. I'll be on deck with the coaches, I'll be in their ear and I want to improve our conversion rate. I definitely see that as my primary role.
"It's a starting point for Chris and I. We know it's a challenge and we've got to change some things drastically."
Spice, who joined British Swimming from British Basketball in April, said: "From our point of view this was an assessment meet. It's a brutal assessment of where we are," he said. "Our impact hasn't even begun yet.
"As soon as we get our leadership team on board, we'll be looking at what we can do in terms of the front end next year to make a real difference but what we do know is that things can't stay the same.
"We've reset our UK Sport targets and they are fully aware that we've only just started in the post. They also understand that our leadership team is not even in place yet."
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Yet, as #1 says, when Sweetenham cracked the whip a bit, British swimmers said it was too hard,
The ASA doesn't own a swimming pool.
The majority of pools in the UK are owned by Local Authorities whose rate payers have no interest in promoting competitive swimming.
If the UK wants fast swimmers it will need to invest in a significant number of 50m pools and make these available at reasonable cost, as France has done.
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Good point. Another poster has given the reasonable reply that UK Sport funds elite swimming and nothing else, but you could ask why is that? This isn't a country with any real swimming tradition, buying results to suggest that we have one doesn't change that.
17. Its not talent spotting at a young age that is the problem. It is the coaching once they reach a high level. Otherwise they would not swim WC times at trials and then fail at the champs. Almost every year it is the same but because Becky was a double medal banker it only took 2 or 3 others to perform well and everything looked rosy when it really was not.
Again after the debacle of the olympics for swimming it falls with the coaching techniques involved. I've always thought its old hat and there isn't enough technology involved among other things. the quote "i'll be in their ear" says it all really.
the results are what you would expect from the last 8 years, take Adlington's medals out and it's exactly the same
Do not count on it changing any time soon
Even the backward FA finally realised that they needed to invest in St George's Park if the England team was move forward. As some have said Meluityte moved countries and away from her family to succeed. Ellie Simmonds left home with her mum to train.
I think the level of resource currently in play outside of the pool is a critical factor that is being overlooked.
Take Steve Peters involvement in Cycling and for Ronnie O'Sulivan.