On 5 April 2022 DASC held its annual 400m Club Gala. This year for the first time, as well as there being 400m Freestyle events, there were 400m IM events too.
Few of our swimmers have competed at 400m IM in a licenced gala, so this provided swimmers from Top and A1 squads with the opportunity to attempt it for the first time and in their home pool. It was great to see so many of them have a go at this tough event, and most of them did it after competing in the 400m Freestyle event too.
Standard times were set as baseline times for Club Gala records. On the night Lucy Oliver set a new record of 5:26.23 in the 11&12 years age group.
To mark the introduction of this new event four new trophies were given to the club to award to the winners. Head Coach, Lucy Proctor, awarded two for the Male and Female 12&Under winners, and The Teague Family awarded two trophies for the Male and Female 13&Over winners.
The inaugural winners were:
Male 12& Under Harry Whitfield Female 12&Under Lucy Oliver Male 13&Over Richard Murray Female 13&Over Laura Burgess
Three DASC swimmers, with Head Coach Lucy Proctor, travelled to Glasgow to compete in the Scottish National Age Group Championships (SNAGs for short) taking place over 5 days leading up to Easter at the Tollcross International Swimming Centre. It proved to be a most successful competition for the club.
Lucy Oliver was crowned Champion in the 13 years age group in all 4 of the events she entered: 50m Freestyle producing a PB in the final of 28.71 100m Freestyle in 1.02.40 just outside her PB 400m Freestyle in 4.54.11 100m Butterfly in 1.09.28 Laura Burgess in the 16 years age group produced a super PB of 1.00.41 on 100m Freestyle to win silver, and then just missed out on a medal by 0.1 second to finish 4th in the 50m Freestyle with a swim very close to her PB.
Niamh Kay competed in the 50m Breaststroke in the 15 years age group and finished as first reserve for the final, gaining valuable experience at this new level of competition for her.
Lucy and Laura both continue to demonstrate their competitive spirit and their ability to step up their performances for finals, along with producing consistently good times on or around their Personal Bests over a sustained period of time. Combined with great natural talent, they both work very hard in training to continually improve their technique, fitness and speed.
Head Coach, Lucy Proctor, said, “The girls had a great competition, racing at Tollcross for the first time. It was a huge achievement to qualify and an even bigger achievement to come away with medals! Hopefully, their times put them in a good position for Summer Nationals.”
Non-Scottish swimmers had to achieve qualifying times considerably faster than those for Scottish swimmers. Heats and finals were swum on the same day for most events, except for some longer events which were Heat Declared Winner events. It is 9 years since DASC attended this event. It provided an excellent opportunity for some high-level competition during the qualifying window for the British and Home Nation Summer Meets.
Please click on the link below to read the Northern Echo’s tribute to Eric Wilkinson who was a very long serving member of DASC back in the 50s,60s and 70s, carrying out multiple roles within the club and in the wider swimming circles, becoming ASA President in 1991, all on a voluntary basis.
Having read the article if anyone is interested in reading more on the history of DASC click here, this provides a 100 year history of DASC 1882-1982 which will include plenty of mentions of Eric Wilkinson.
Congratulations to Sebastian Mason from A2 squad who has been selected to be part of the Northumberland and Durham County Swimming Camp for 2022. The camp forms part of the Northumberland and Durham Development Programme and will provide an opportunity for swimmers to develop their technical, tactical, physical and psychological skills with swimmers of similar age and ability from across the county. The camp will also provide an opportunity for swimmers to work with different coaches and to train in a different environment.
The N&D Championships (aka ‘N&Ds’) were held over two weekends in February in the 50m pool at Sunderland Aquatic Centre.
Medals were awarded for 10&11 years, 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16&Over agegroups with age determined as at 31 December 2022. There were heats and finals in the same session for all events except those of 400m or longer and the 200m events for 10&11 years which were Heat Declared Winner (HDW) events. The fastest 10 swimmers qualified to compete in the finals
In several agegroups and/or events, there were 10 or fewer competitors in total, which rendered the heats somewhat redundant, but swimmers still had to participate in them in order to qualify for the final.
DASC Summary of Qualifiers and Results
Swimmers have to achieve qualifying times to be eligible to compete. From DASC there were 10 girls and 13 boys who achieved a total of 123 qualifying times between them. Of these, 9 of the girls, plus our Para swimmer, and 9 of the boys competed in a total of 88 events.
DASC swimmers won a total of 6 Golds, 2 Silvers and 6 Bronzes, and 2 medals for our Para swimmer, as well as a further 17 Top 10 placings.
Overall, out of 32 participating clubs, DASC came 9th in the Medal Table (based on number of golds), 11th in the Agegroup (10-14 years) Points totals (for Top 10 placings) and 13th in the Open (15, 16&Over) Points totals.
There were about 65 long course PB swims recorded in the events. This includes some swimming events for the first-time long course, but doesn’t include counting double for several swimmers who swam a PB time in the heats, and then swam even faster in the final. This is an excellent proportion of PB times.
The DASC Medallists
Our outstanding swimmer was Lucy Oliver who dominated the 13 years age group winning 5 Golds in 50m, 100m, 200m and 400m Freestyle and 100m Butterfly, 2 Bronzes in 800m Freestyle and 200m Individual Medley, 4th places on 50m Butterfly and 100m Backstroke and a 5th place on 50m Backstroke. This demonstrates what a versatile swimmer she is, and also how physically fit and mentally tough she is. She recorded PBs in 8 out of 10 of her events. The time for 100m Butterfly currently places her as the 2nd fastest 13-year-old in the country on that event, and her winning Freestyle times put her in 7th, 5th, 8th and 8th spots respectively on Rankings.
Harry Whitfield (12)is improving rapidly and came away with Silvers on 200m and 400m Freestyle, Bronzes on 100m Freestyle and 50m Butterfly, and a 5th place on 50m Freestyle with PBs in 5 of his 6 events. This is a big step-up in performance level compared to his N&D debut in 2020.
It was great to see the Breaststroke specialist Niamh Kay becoming N&D Champion in the 15 years 50m Breaststroke. She also got a Bronze on 100m and a 6th place on 200m, clocking up PBs in all 4 of the events she swam.
Laura Burgess sprinted her way to a Bronze medal in the 16&Over 50m Freestyle with an excellent 27.51, and 3 other PB times in her 7 events.Josie Johnson (13 and classified as S8 and SB8) won a Para-Gold on 50m Breaststroke and a Silver on 50m Freestyle.
Top Ten Placings
Other DASC swimmers to finish in the Top 10 in their events were: Lewis Kestle (15) 50m Butterfly 7th 100m Backstroke 8th 200m Backstroke 10th 100m Butterfly 10th
Ruby Diment (15) 100m Backstroke 6th 50m Backstroke 7th 100m Butterfly 9th
Zara Jones (14) 50m Backstroke 10th 100m Backstroke 9th
Emma Carter (14) 50m Breaststroke 8th
April Mansfield (12) 50m Freestyle 5th
Sebastien Mason (11)100m Butterfly 4th
Zara, April and Sebastien were all competing in their first N&D Championships, and will have gained valuable experience by competing at this level. Ruby and Lewis had busy weekends, competing in 10 and 7 events respectively.
Other DASC Representatives
Several more Senior DASC swimmers competed again at N&D level in the competitive 16&Over group – James McLeary in 9 events with 5 PBs set, Max Butler in 5 events with a PB in each of them, Emily Burrell with 4 PBs from 5 swims and Richard Murray.
Hugo Douglas-Reeves (14)swam in all 3 Breaststroke events, gaining PBs and narrowly missing qualifying for the final in each of them. In the same agegroup, Ben Matthias, swam PB times in 50m Freestyle and Backstroke events.
Two more 14-year-old DASC swimmers achieved N&D qualifying times for the first time in their swimming careers and benefitted from stepping up to this level – Chiara Valgolio in 3 events with good PBs in all of them and Kian Woodwith a great PB in 50m Freestyle breaking the 30 second mark for the first time.
DASC Head Coach, Lucy Proctor said, “We were all excited to get back to N&D’s after 2 years! The results over the two weekends have been excellent, our swimmers represented themselves and DASC so well. Finishing 9th in the overall medal table is an outstanding achievement for our club.”
Report compiled by Jane Teague 8th March 2022
N&D DASC Qualifiers Feb 22N&D DASC Qualifiers Feb 22
Well done to everyone who competed in the first Club gala of 2022. Two new records were set by Laura Burgess, in the 50m Freestyle (15/Over years), and Lucy Oliver, in the 200m Butterfly (11&12 years) – congratulations!
The 100m events and long distance events at our club galas count for points towards our Club Championships (boys and girls). The standings so far after one gala are shown in the document below.
Here at DASC we run an award scheme with targets set to encourage our younger or inexperienced swimmers. The scheme sets target times for all four strokes and Individual Medley at three levels. Swimmers who achieve faster than the target times qualify to buy a sprint award badge. See details below.
