The main objective of the project Recruiting in Open Water Swimming (ROWS) is to support the mobility of swimming coaches, managers and staff of non-profit sport organisations (swimming clubs and federations), creating a networking opportunity of exchanging their knowledge on how to motivate swimmers to prolong their swimming career including them in Open Water Swimming (OWS).
Specific objectives are:
To give the teenage swimmers who end their swimming activity, due to high school obligations or simply due to too intensive trainings, an opportunity to continue swimming by exchanging the pool with OWS. They will be given a new beginning, namely, a continuation of their swimming (sport) career.
To give the top swimmers, who are at the end of their pool swimming careers and in their early twenties, the opportunity to prolong their top career for at least 10 years in OWS.
The Project innovative value is that, to our knowledge, nobody so far has given any serious thought about how to avoid the unnecessary interruption of an already technically accomplished swimmer in the sport they have dedicated all their young life to. Being a relatively new Olympic sport (from Beijing 2008), it is still insufficiently recognized by the public and pool swimmers, so the strategies suggested in this project would definitely contribute to enlarging the number of swimmers in OWS and with this also the quality of OWS.
Last but not the least, the added value at EU level is the innovative way of recruiting swimmers for a lifelong swimming, thus the importance and benefit is not only for OWS, but for swimming and sport in EU in general. Moreover, swimming longer, or swimming for life (an activity that is adequate and injury-free for any person, not only for athletes) is a very important aspect of health-enhancing value for all the citizens and it is a highly desirable goal to be achieved in any EU country.