Netball Australia has partnered with Commonwealth Games Australia on a program aimed at developing the next crop of netballers demonstrating potential to progress into the Samsung Australian Diamonds program within the next three years, and ultimately Birmingham 2022.
The program will be made up of selected athletes who have been assessed as showing capability and potential to represent Australia at the highest level and will involve various camps and competitions where the athletes will become familiar with the nation’s high-performance netball program.
The development program participants, along with the head coach, will be confirmed following the announcement of the 2019/20 Samsung Diamonds squad and 2019 Diamonds Constellation Cup team.
“The program will help develop, support and progress quality athletes through the athlete pathway to ensure we are ready for Birmingham in 2022 and the Netball World Cup in Cape Town in 2023.”
The program participants will gather for the first time at a training camp at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra from Wednesday 2nd October to Friday 4th October 2019. The camp will focus on providing an elite environment that delivers high intensity individual position-specific development and unit learning with technical and tactical challenges.
From there, participants from the program will depart for New Zealand where they will be play against the New Zealand A and England A teams in a double round robin format competition from Saturday 5th October to Wednesday 9th October.
Netball Australia’s Executive General Manager of Performance Andrew Collins said the development program is part of Netball Australia’s high-performance strategy.
“We’ve partnered with Commonwealth Games Australia on this concept in preparation for Birmingham in 2022 and we’re excited to bring together the nation’s most exciting netballers and to support them within our high-performance program,” he said.
“The program will help develop, support and progress quality athletes through the athlete pathway to ensure we are ready for Birmingham in 2022 and the Netball World Cup in Cape Town in 2023.”
Commonwealth Games Australia CEO Craig Phillips said CGA was proud to financially assist sports to help develop the next generation of stars.
“Between 1996 and 2018, CGA has provided in excess of $43 million to its members and athletes. The funding is partly from the legacies of hosting home Games in Melbourne and the Gold Coast and allows for sports to fund new programs, such as this in netball.” Phillips said.
“Our 2016-2022 strategy is “Building Team Success” and this funding will help our sports and athletes in these crucial years before the final lead in to Birmingham where our goal is to be the No.1 nation in both gold and overall medals at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.”
The athletes selected to be part of this program will be selected annually by the Netball Australia National Selection Panel with input from the Samsung Diamonds and development program coaches.
