Six DASC swimmers took part in the SENE Regional Championships held over the 3-day Bank Holiday weekend at the start of May at Ponds Forge International Sports Centre in Sheffield. All our swimmers were in the 16&under Youth Age Group, with Lucy Oliver young enough to be swimming in the Age Group Championships as well.
All of the events, except the 800m/1500m and relay events, had heats and finals. DASC swimmers competed under the banner of the Northumberland & Durham Performance Programme Swimming Club (N&D PP SC), with Lucy being selected for the B team in the 14-16 years 400m Freestyle Team Relay and Alex being selected for the B Team in the 14-16 years 400m Medley Team Relay swimming the Butterfly leg. These relays are for qualification into British Summer Championships so we will be waiting to see if either of those B Teams qualified.
In her final Youth year, Niamh Kay (16) swam in all 3 Breaststroke events, coming 2nd in the 50m Junior final and 4thplace in the 100m Junior final, with PBs on 100m and 200m. Lucy Oliver (14) had a busy weekend, competing against older swimmers in 5 events, some events she had swam the previous weekend at Age Groups. Lucy has qualified for British Summer Championships and English Summer Nationals so these were great practice swims for the summer. Emma Carter (15) swam a great 50m Freestyle PB to break the 30 second barrier for the first time long course.
Lewis Kestle (16) competed in 6 events, clocking up 4 long course PBs and a great 9th place finish in the final of the 50m Butterfly. Alex Morton (15) competed in sprint events in all 4 strokes, demonstrating his versatility, as well as his potential as an IM swimmer. Hugo Douglas-Reeves (15) competed in two Breaststroke events and swam so close to his recent Long Course PB times.
Each year, the standard at Open NER’s gets higher, so to have 6 qualifiers from DASC with 24 swims between them was fantastic
Fantastic Championships this year. All swimmers were really supportive of each other and times swam, number of finals and medals all exceeded my expectations!!
Well done to all swimmers who competed in the Division 2 Diddy League Heat 1. Out of the 49 events the team secured 29 top 3 places including 7 first places, with the team finishing 3rd overall. Everyone worked very hard and a big ‘shout-out’ to Autumn Gill and Phoebe Wall, for who it was their first experience of swimming in a gala and only being members of the club for a few weeks!.
Congratulations to the following 1st place swimmers:
10/u Medley relay (girls) – Ella Harcourt, Martha Kirkbride, Emmy Nicholson, Sasha Johnson
9yr 25m Freestyle (boy) – Joseph Knowles
12yr 50m Fly (boy) – Sebastian Mason
9yr 25m Breaststroke (boys) – Joseph Knowles
11yr 50m Fly (boy) – William Oliver
12yr 50m Free (boy) – Sebastian Mason
10yr 50m Fly (boy)- Ben Appleyard
Heat 2 of the Diddy League programme will take place on Sunday 11th June at Morpeth Leisure Centre. Team selection will be notified by email.
Plus a huge thank you to Carol for organising the Diddy League team and event and to the poolside support from Katie Nicholson and Chiara Valgolio.
Three swimmers from DASC made the long trek North to compete in the Scottish National Age Group Championships which were held in Aberdeen on 12 -16 April. Between them they entered 10 events and made 10 finals.
Harry Whitfield (13) was dominant in two of the distance Freestyle events, winning Gold in the 400m and 1500m HDW (Heat Declared Winner) events. Later he competed in the shorter Freestyle events, finishing 3rd in the 200m and 4th in the 100m, both in new Long Course PB times. In addition, he also won a Bronze in the 100m Butterfly in another PB time. Given that Harry had already set PB times in all these events in swims from earlier in 2023, it is great that he was able to better those times again, so soon after setting them.
Lucy Oliver (14) swam in 4 events, finishing the Championships with a Silver in 200m Butterfly, Bronzes in both 50m Freestyle and 100m Butterfly, and 4th place in 100m Freestyle.
Niamh Kay (16) finished 9th in the final of the 50m Breaststroke in her age group.
‘“We really enjoyed the atmosphere and the pool facilities were great. It was good to see the hard work we’ve been doing in training has got us to Scottish Nationals and competing against some really fast swimmers.”
Well done to the five swimmers who entered the long distance events at Tynemouth last Friday and huge congratulations to Harry Whitfield, who’s 800m time of 9:11.05 has placed him at the No.1 position in the swimming rankings for his age (age at 31 Dec.23 short course boys 800m Freestyle).
A huge well done to Josie Johnson (A1 squad) who recently attended the Citi Para Swimming World Series inc. British Para Swimming Meet 2023 in Sheffield where she swam alongside some top British Champions. The competition ran from 16th-19th April with 311 athletes representing 36 nations.
This meet doubles up as a World Series meet involving dozens of Paralympic and world medallists, including British multi-Paralympic champions Maisie Summers-Newton, Bethany Firth and Jessica-Jane Applegate, and as as the flagship domestic para-swimming event, with the future stars of British Para-Swimming taking to the blocks. Each event featured a National Meet final alongside a World Series final, with heats running concurrently.
Josie swam in 3 events; 100m Freestyle, 100m Breaststroke and 100m Backstroke and achieved PB’s in all 3 events, including a massive 10 second backstroke PB! Well done Josie.
“Fantastic Championships this year. All swimmers were really supportive of each other and times swam, number of finals and medals all exceeded my expectations!!”
