James Bailey: Life in the World Class Academy Programme

As some of you may be aware in September 2006 aged 17 I moved to Nottingham from Stafford to become a member of the World Class Academy programme. Hopefully this will give people a better idea of what the academy is all about especially those hoping to take part in it in the future.

The academy was setup in 2006 as a way of allowing young athletes to train full time in the best possible way without compromising their studies. There are four of us taking part me and Greg Pitt from Stafford and stone and Joe Morley and Anton Lippek aswell. Essentially we live in a house with a family as if we were lodgers, we train at Holme Pierrepont and we are educated at either South Nottingham College or Dayncourt school.

The main feature of the academy is being situated in Nottingham, this means we can train as much as any senior athlete, we can train on the best site in Britain and we have easy access to a gym and coaches.

When I first moved I was trying to do three a-levels, train full time and get around using my bike and public transport, this was very difficult and I was often tired with training and schoolwork suffering. So I decided to drop one a-level (having checked with all universities that I am applying to that it would make no difference to my being offered a place on their course), this freed up a whole day for me and allowed me to complete my schoolwork better and to train at a more reasonable time. Rather than being on the water for 6:30 am, going to college from 9 till 4 and then training again from 4:30 till 6:30. I also passed my driving test which gives me more flexibility and means I am not cycling everywhere and being tired for training.

Click here to see the timetable for a typical week for me now (pdf document opens in new window).

This doesn’t look like a lot but it is very hard physically because of the amount of training, it is also quite hard mentally and I have to make sure I take time to switch off from school and canoeing and relax e.g. going to the cinema or just watching TV.
When you first move in it is quite strange because you are living in someone’s house who you’ve only met twice and you don’t know where anything is, however you soon settle in and get used to life there, in my house we normally eat dinner together but get our own breakfast and lunch whenever we are around. I live in a family with three teenagers, their parents and the cat so it is quite busy with lots of people around at different times.

I feel the academy has helped me loads over the past few months because I have had much more access to whitewater so have got better technically, I also have more time with my coach so we can work together more often which is very beneficial.

I think it is a good intermediate step because we get used to living away from home and being more independent but we don’t have to do all our cooking and washing etc., we are also getting ‘life lessons’ e.g being taught to cook, wash, clean, professional attitude, organisational skills etc. etc. to prepare us for next year when we will be looking after ourselves totally.

If anyone has any questions about the academy I am happy to talk about it with them, I will be around at all the mini slaloms or you can email me at jamesbailey23@hotmail.com

If you are interested in nutrition, you can read what James Bailey eats in a typical day

James Bailey by Neil Cowan

photo: James Bailey