22&23 April, 13&14 May
DASC had 5 young swimmers qualify for the Regional Age Group Championships held in the 50m pool in Sunderland over two weekends in April and May 2023. They competed in a total of 37 events, which included 19 Top Ten finishes with 5 of these being medal winning finishes, and 17 of the times recorded were long course PB swims.
Heats were held in the morning sessions with finals in the afternoon session on the same day. The only events not to have separate finals were 800m and 1500m Freestyle events. Swimming heats and finals of 400m events on the same day requires a good level of fitness. Medals were awarded by agegroups, with 11- & 12-year-olds in one combined agegroup and then 13 years and 14 years separately.
Our outstanding performer of the Championships was Harry Whitfield (13) who finished with 1 Gold (800m Free), 2 Silvers (400m Free and 1500m Free), and 2 Bronzes (50m Free and 100m Free). He just missed out on getting a medal in every Freestyle distance with a 4th place on 200m Free, as well as 4th in 100m Fly and 5th in 50m Fly and 200m IM. Over the course of the two weekends Harry produced 7 PB swims in his 10 events, with several of these being improvements on times set recently within the past few months.
This is the first year that William Oliver (11) has been of Regional age, and he will have another year to go in the 11 & 12 years agegroup. He competed in 10 events and, despite swimming against older swimmers, he made 2 finals finishing 4th on 50m Breast in a really tight race and 8th on 100m Fly. He notched up 5 new long course PBs too.
Sebastien Mason (12) competed in 5 events on sprint Free, Fly and Breast with PB times in each of them. He made three finals and finished 4th in 50m Fly, 5th in 50m Free and 7th in 100m Fly.
This is the first time that Tristan Wheeler (13) has attended the Long Course Regional Championships and he will have gained valuable experience competing at this level on 200m Free, and 50m and 100m Butterfly with some very strong 13-year-old boys within the region to compete against.
In her final year as an agegroup swimmer, Lucy Oliver (14) competed in 9 of the 12 events she had qualified in, whilst also competing in 5 events at the SENE Open Championships too. Lucy made 5 finals placing 6th in 100m Butterfly.
Our age group swimmers represented DASC extremely well over both weekends, clocking up 17 finals between them and numerous PB times
Head Coach, Lucy Procter