Sam van de Schootbrugge and Fiona Donnelly part of British team for European Junior Championships

Sam van de Schootbrugge and Fiona Donnelly have confirmed their places in Great Britain’s swimming team for the 2011 European Junior Championships.

British Swimming declared that they have selected their swimming squad to the European Junior Championships, but hesitated to publicise the names of their athletes.

Schootbrugge and Donnelly performed considerably well at the 2012 European Championships, where Donnelly won the silver medal in the 4*200m freestyle relay and Schootbrugge qualified for the final of the 400m Individual Medley (IM), finishing tenth in the event.

New coach to British Swimming Development Programme, Mark Perry, will escort the British junior team to these European championships. Perry is also providing his services to the British Swimming as the Open Water Coach, which will run along with his new designation.

These European championships have been considered of immense importance, as British Swimming has marked them as a priority event for the Junior Swimming Team.

The European Junior Championships is the main tournament on the British Swimming development calendar. Perry stressed that the event is of significant importance in the International Swimming Community, as their position in the international swimming world is highly dependent on the performance of their young swimmers at this meet.

Perry said, “The team is smaller than previous years but is brimming with quality and potential. We have a strong tradition at the event and we’ll be prepared as best we can. We can dictate our own form but we can’t control what the other nations are going to go.”

Perry added that the selected swimmers will attend a training camp to prepare for the competition. He also said that this camp will be supervised by all coaches affiliated with the Development Program.

Perry asserted, “The camps will be based on a race-train-race philosophy. We’ll race on shore and analyse performances to identify areas for improvement.”