Swimming Canada Names 10 to New High Performance Athlete Council

PICKREM Sydney LON London Roar (LON) ISL International Swimming League 2021 Match 9 day 2 Piscina Felice Scandone Napoli, Naples Photo Giorgio Scala / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto

Photo Courtesy: Photo Giorgio Scala / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto

Swimming Canada Names 10 to New High Performance Athlete Council

Swimming Canada this week announced 10 swimmers who will constitute the first High Performance Athlete Council.

The council will be co-chaired by Olympic medalist Sydney Pickrem and Patrick Waters, a member of the 2019 Parapan Am Games. The council includes active and recently retired athletes.

“I’m looking forward to engaging with this group of dedicated high performance swimmers and working together to achieve the mandates of the council,” Swimming Canada CEO Ahmed El-Awadi said in a press release. “Our Board of Directors is committed to hearing from our athletes. The Athlete Council is one avenue that supports this construction of a solid framework for dialogue and understanding between all of our stakeholders. It also provides swimmers with a deeper insight into how organizations are run and can help our athletes further develop their life skills.”

The council includes Javier Acevedo, Hua-Li Fan, Finlay Knox, Kylie Masse, Rachel Nicol, Emily Overholt, Abi Tripp, Tess Routliffe, Taylor Ruck and Kayla Sanchez. The High Performance Athlete Council had its first meeting on March 9, with a second scheduled May 5. It will meet a minimum of three times through the year.

It’s the latest in a series of changes aimed at athlete development by the organization. It includes two swimmers in Ruck, who late last year detailed her struggles with an eating disorder, and Overholt, who has struggled with depression prior to her retirement, who have been very public about their difficulties with mental health.

“I’ve been an athlete with Swimming Canada for a long time now, so I think I can add a voice to help move the organization forward with improving communications and processes with the national team athletes,” Waters said. “What we really want is a council that will have some succession planning in place so that it’s not just a year-by-year process. We need steps along the way to establish those checkpoints, and that’s our main priority as a council.”

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