British Swimming announces £15m sponsorship agreement with British Gas

British Swimming has announced a £15m sponsorship agreement with British Gas, which will be its sponsoring partner in the run up to the London 2012 Olympics and beyond until 2015. British Gas has pledged £15 million over the next six years and will support every level of swimming, from learners and grassroots to elite athletes. It will also support related sports such as water polo and diving.

The new partnership will back projects aimed at providing everyone in Britain with an opportunity to learn to swim and reach their full potential in the pool. It builds on the success of the Beijing Olympics, with the stated intention of encouraging people from all backgrounds and standards to get involved and enjoy swimming. The sponsorship includes the three Home Country Associations - the ASA, Swim Wales and Scottish Swimming - and provides British Gas with the title sponsorship of all British aquatic teams as well as national events across all disciplines, inluding all levels from grassroots to elite. British Swimming's Chief Executive David Sparkes welcomed the deal: “This is a great partnership with tremendous synergy between British Swimming, the home country federations and British Gas. “British Swimming looks forward to working with British Gas as a long term partner and this provides us all with an opportunity to take a significant step forward. Together we’ll work hard towards achieving more medals in London 2012 and to get more people swimming more often and having more fun. Proud “Just as British Gas works for millions of customers, the home country swimming associations provide excellent programmes for all – from young children and learn to swim through to adult health and participation schemes – these care for all ages and abilities involved with swimming”. Commenting on the announcement, Rick Vlemmiks, Marketing Director at British Gas, said: “We’re very proud to be partnering with British Swimming and working together to get more people in Britain reaching their potential in the pool.       “Our role is to support British Swimming across the board. This means nurturing the talent of Britain’s brightest hopes for London 2012 and beyond, but also, with many local pools under threat of closure, working hard to help pools cut their running costs and stay open.” In a joint press release, the two organisations described the three key areas on which the new sponsorship programme will focus: Programme 1) Committed to Communities – swimming is Britain’s biggest participation sport with twelve million people swimming regularly but many local pools are under threat of closure due to high running costs. The partnership between British Gas and British Swimming will work with local pools and community groups to help stop pools closing and enable them to remain at the heart of the community. 2) Committed to Kids and Health – British Swimming and British Gas will work together to support a healthy future for children and swimming in Britain. They hope that by 2010, more children leaving primary school will be able to swim 25m and have a good knowledge of water safety. Beyond schools, they also aim to encourage half a million more people to swim regularly via schemes such as Learn to Swim and Swimfit. 3) Committed to Gold – the partnership will help identify, nurture and support talented individuals and increase the number of world-ranked British athletes. The partnership will support British Swimming's ambitions for success in 2012 and beyond.