Artistic Swimming Australia is exceptionally grateful to the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) and in turn, the Federal Government for the recent approval of two grants to support the development of athletes and coaches in our high performance pathway.

The AIS awarded ASAI a Performance Pathways Solutions grant to facilitate the strengthening and expansion of high performance pathways, and an AIS Small NSO Infrastructure grant that will enable delivery of digital solutions for coach and athlete development.

Artistic Swimming Australia President, Kim Davis, commented that “the support from the AIS will have an invaluable impact on our performance pathways throughout the artistic swimming community as we execute a range of targeted athlete, coach, judge and system development strategies.”

The AIS Performance Pathways Solutions grant funding will facilitate enhanced identification, development, support and progression of artistic swimming talent towards the podium. A nationwide talent recruitment and development program will be implemented and a locally-delivered Performance Pathways Program will be designed to improve outcomes at all levels of the pathway.

Coach and judge development will be a priority including the launch of a coaching scholarship program, judge workshops and an Australian Skill Curriculum.

The AIS Infrastructure grant will fund a Learning Management System that will host interactive coach development courses and new coach and judge development content.

High Performance Pathways Director, Elissa Morley, said “This terrific opportunity presented by the AIS will make it possible to work on filling the talent pipeline with the next generation of high performance artistic swimmers while simultaneously supporting coaches and judges with a variety of development opportunities. These grants have enabled us to commit to a range of projects designed to elicit growth and long-term success.”

AIS CEO Peter Conde said “Coaching and pathways support is critical to the future of Australian sport, helping the AIS and sports to discover and develop our champions of the future.

“We thank the Australian Government for the funding that makes these sporting dreams possible for our next generation of athletes coming through.”

ASAI members can find more information on how the funding will be used to implement High Performance Pathways projects here and coach development projects here.