Talented Athlete Programme Keele - Bella
Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qytn8bB1yg4
The Talented Athlete programme helps high performance athletes manage their uni life and academics with their training at Keele.
This video was published on 24 July 2025.
Hi, my name is Bella. I'm a swimmer, and I'm part of the Talented Athlete Programme here at Keele.
I train for around 15 hours a week - 12 hours in the Jubilee2 pool in the local area and 3 hours in the gym and I've competed all the way up to national level.
The Talented Athlete Programme is a programme that helps high performance athletes manage their uni life and academics with their training here at Keele.
In terms of what's expected of you on the programme, I would say you need to train as much as you can whilst maintaining good grades in your academics and notify the team of your achievements after competitions throughout the semester.
But at the end of the day, it’s all about having a good time and making friends with people who have the same passion and love for sport as you do.
In terms of support, the programme offers me access to the Strength and Conditioning Suite within the Keele Sports Centre. It also gives me a personalised training plan based on my individual sport and there's also a great network of people who are involved within the programme.
Some of the benefits of the Talented Athlete Programme is that the Strength and Conditioning Suite is very close to my accommodation so I can do gym sessions between my lectures. Also for swimming, Keele is very centrally located in the UK, so I have easy access to many different competitions around the country.
