swimming'>British Swimming has made changes to the way its National Centres operate in an attempt to capitalise on a strong Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

From 1 January 2017 the centres in Bath and Loughborough will expand their focus from just concentrating on resident athletes to involve all national programme athletes beyond the locality.

The strategy is to make the centres “true performance hubs” in the run-up to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics after a successful 2016 Summer Games in which Team GB racked up nine medals.

Sport science and medicine professionals working in Bath and Loughborough will now have national roles, travelling around the country to “service key programme athletes”.

“The role of the centres will shift to service the needs of the wider programme, from the start of next year, and this review and restructure will enable us to meet these performance needs,” said national performance director Chris Spice.

“The changes and appointments made will enable coaches to spend more time coaching athletes while sport science staff will offer greater support to a wider network of programme swimmers.”

National Centres will host national programme events such as national team development and technical-based camp activity and coach development.

David McNulty (national lead centre coach) and Jol Finck (national centre coach) oversee operations in Bath, while Melanie Marshall (national lead centre coach) and David Hemmings (national centre coach) will take the lead in Loughborough.

Spice said despite the good showing in Brazil, British Swimming “can’t stand still”, adding: “We must move forward and we believe this new structure gives us the best platform for this.”

“We have made significant performance gains over the past four years but Tokyo will be an even greater challenge,” Spice explained.