By Bob Fromer
Monday 18 July – The GB Senior Women’s Team, back together for the first time since 2019, will conclude a week-long UK training camp with a send-off barbecue this evening at the Bisham Abbey National Sports Centre and then fly to Barcelona tomorrow for the 2022 European Women’s Championship.
The barbecue will be attended by representatives from the BSF and also from UK Sport, which is funding the Women’s Team programme with money from the National Lottery, and from the British Olympic Association, as the team’s stated goal is to qualify for and win a medal at the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
This goal, and the funding from UK Sport, is why the GB Women have been able to spend the past week at Bisham Abbey near High Wycombe, home to many of the country’s elite national and Olympic sporting teams and athletes, with the players being able to access the Centre’s sophisticated training facilities.
Outdoor training sessions, including team scrimmage games on Friday, Sunday and this morning, have taken place at nearby Farnham Park with the support of BaseballSoftballUK staff.
Seventeen players, ranging in age from 15 through 31, have attended the training camp, and 16 of them – all but the youngest player -- will travel to Spain to compete in the European Championship.
Eight of the players are returnees from the GB Women’s Team that reached the final of the Europe/Africa Olympic Qualifying tournament in 2019, and the eight new players give this year’s team a good balance of youth and experience.
The goal, as the GB Women’s Team programme resumes and begins to build towards Los Angeles 2028, is to finish in the top three at the this year’s Europeans and thereby qualify to play in one of the Group Stage tournaments next year in Ireland, Spain or Italy leading to the 2024 WBSC Women’s World Cup.
Camp highlights
The funding the GB Women’s Team has received from UK Sport, and our presence within Britain’s Olympic family, has brought benefits to the training camp in the form of external support from a number of agencies.
The English Institute of Sport (EIS) has provided nutrition training for the players and staff. This began in June with online sessions, and on Thursday 16 July the team had a practical session at Farnham Park about "eating on the go" and proper “fueling” and hydration during international competition.
That evening, the players were addressed by David Smith MBE, a British adaptive rower and cyclist who won gold at the Paralympics in London in 2012 and has also won two World Championships, overcoming a severe spinal cord injury.
GB player Kim Hobson said, “Of all the speakers and presenters I've heard through sports and college, this was by far the best and most inspiring talk I've ever attended.”
Earlier, a representative from the British Athletes Commission met the squad to go through the support that they can access as a UK Sport-funded programme.
BSUK Head of Performance Services Gary Anderson, who is overseeing the training camp and the programme, said, “The objective of this camp is to optimally prepare this group for the forthcoming European Championship and set the scene for our performance campaign through to 2028. Bisham Abbey is a World Class facility and home to many Olympic medal winners, and it just knows how to look after world class athletes.”
European Women's Championship
The 2022 European Women’s Championship will be played from 24-30 July, mainly in nearby Sant Boi as well as in Barcelona, and Sant Boi has happy memories for the GB programme as the place where, in 2016, the then GB Under-19 Women’s Team won Britain’s first and so far only European fastpitch gold medal.
Before the tournament begins, the GB Women will have additional training sessions and will play warm-up games against three of the 20 other countries in the competition.
GB did not compete in the European Women’s Championship held in 2021 because of European Covid restrictions against travellers from the UK, and that's why the team has received a low seeding in the tournament and will have to win two games on Sunday 24 July, against Turkey and Ukraine, to get into the tournament proper.
Assuming that happens, GB would then play five round-robin games over Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, 25-27 July, with the possibility of further progress determined by results.
Players and process
Having the week-long camp at Bisham Abbey and Farnham Park, despite the unseasonal heat at the end of it, has been invaluable in bringing players together, half of whom have never played for the team before, and beginning to build teamwork and coordination on the field and bonds between players, as well as between players and staff.
The three warm-up matches the team will play in Spain this week before the tournament begins will be crucial for giving Head Coach Rachael Watkeys and her staff information about the best way to use a versatile group of players and what this team can achieve after a three-year hiatus.
The team reached a peak in 2019 in getting so close to Olympic qualification for Tokyo, and the task will be to rebuild towards that peak with a sizeable new cohort of players.
The players who will be travelling to Barcelona (returnees from 2019 are marked with an asterisk) are:
Sydney Brown*
Katie Burge*
Georgina Corrick*
Lauren Evans*
Rebecca Faulkner
Imogen Gie
Kimberly Hobson
Amie Hutchison*
Cameron McGinnis
Amy Moore*
Aubrey Peterson*
Morgan Salmon
Kendyl Scott
Tia Warsop
Chloe Wigington*
Jade Yerex
Several of these players – Katie Burge, Imogen Gie, Cameron McGinnis and Morgan Salmon – played for GB in the recent European Under-22 Women’s Championship in the Czech Republic and have brought that game experience to the camp.
Reports on this week’s warm-up matches will be posted on the BSF website, as well as daily reports once the tournament begins.
Fans can access full tournament details and live streaming of games on the WBSC Europe website: https://www.europeansoftball.org/competitions/detail/333.