Please can the following medal winners collect their medals from Jon Chartres on Monday/Friday evenings from 7.45pm or Sunday mornings. Josh Stevenson, Felix Williams, Lindsay Walke, Rachel Hall, Kaleb Cragg, Kirstie Swift, Joel Wilson, Abby McBeath, Jess Fennel, Elizabeth Vernon and Greg Stevens.
Rochelle and Bethany Hughes will be taking part in this year’s Swimathon on Saturday 24 April at 6pm.
Thousands of swimmers around the U.K will be in the pool for the world’s biggest fundraising swim for Marie Curie Cancer Care.
Both will be taking part in the distance challenge with Bethany in the 1.5k and Rochelle in the 2.5k challenge.
Here you can either sponsor Rochelle Hughes or Bethany Hughes or even better both by clicking on the link.
Last year Swimathon raised 1.5 million for Marie Curie Cancer Care and the Swimathon Foundation. This year they hope to raise even more to support Marie Curie nurses provide free nursing care to cancer patients at home.
Please support Rochelle and Bethany with your sponsorship and wish them well with this challenge. Please click here and www.swimathon.org for details. Thank you
The Novice Gala scheduled for the 12th Feb has been moved to 9th July 2010.
This was due to a clash of training times and competition preperation. This new date will be an annual event in the DRSA calendar
Final report for the Devon Championships……..and would you believe it: we have a second county age group champion!!
Swimmers representing DRSA included Dan Crook, Victoria Philpott, Rebecca Hingston, Rachel and Bethany Ward, Jordan Nicholson, Jess Fennell and Rhiannon Davies.
Dan Crook was in positively sensational form. In the blue ribbon event (100m Freestyle) he went into the county final ranked second in his 13 year age group. Dan however seems devoid of stage fright as he smashed his PB to beat the favourite and win the final in truly awesome style. Indeed he is now only a couple of seconds off a National age group time. As if this wasn’t enough excitement for us, he also gained a silver medal in the 100m butterfly as well as making two other finals.
Congratulations also to Rachel Ward who, competing in the county championships for the first year made her way into the demanding 200m Butterfly final. Rhiannon Davies made it to 3 further finals: 200m Butterfly, 200m Freestyle and 200m IM finishing all in 5th place and earning a county BAGCAT award. Victoria Philpott deserves a further mention insofar as she finished in the top ten in her age group for all four strokes and IM race. Jordan also reached two finals on the last weekend but unfortunately had to withdraw due to illness. Finally Rebecca Hingston in her first appearance at county level would have made it through to the 11year old 100 BRS final in fourth fastest position but for an officially perceived one handed touch on her final turn.
This concludes the most successful, individual county medal haul for the club in many years. Well done to Caroline and her team as well as the endeavours of those swimmers who so ably represented the club over the last month. The fun is not quite over yet, since we have the relays, sprints and interclub competitions to go.
A very big THANK YOU to all the officials, parents and swimmers who made the annual DRSA Schools Gala happen yesterday evening. Taking part were 192 Primary children representing 17 schools and 108 Senior students representing 14 schools from all around the city. This was DRSA’s biggest entry list to date and wihout the help of vounteers it could not have taken place. Please click here for results.
2nd Week Devon Champs and the medal success story continues.
DRSA presented 7 swimmers who had secured the challenging entry times for the county’s premier meet: Jordan Nicholson, Victoria Philpott, Rachel and Bethany Ward, Dan Crook, Finlay Bowden and Rhiannon Davies. All swimmers competed strongly with the majority enjoying personal best times. Jordan, Dan, Finlay and Rhiannon also negotiated their way to the county age-group finals. The platinum performance surely goes to the men’s team captain Jordan. Not only has he led the club squad to league promotion as champions this season but on Sunday gained a well earned silver medal in the 16+over 200 Backstroke final. Rhiannon ensured further DRSA success with a bronze in the 10 year old 200 backstroke. Dan Crook nearly doubled his personal medal tally when he came a close 4th in the 100 BRS. Finlay made his second county final but on this occasion had a technical glitch on a backstroke turn.
Also well done to our second claim swimmers: Connor Andrews and Sinead Davies who are currently in PL’s performance squads. They claimed gold in the 200BRS and 100BK respectively. This breadth of success is a real testament to Terry Mansell’s long-term commitment to high quality development coaching.
A sensational start for our DRSA swimmers. As the first day ends we bring back gold and bronze. Well done to all our swimmers for their gallant efforts: Sam and Finlay Bowden, Dan Crook, Rachel Ward, Brittany O’Reilly, Livvy Nel-Barker and Rhiannon Davies.
The highlight of the day was the Girls 10 years breaststroke race. All 3 of our swimmers stormed through to the 6 lane final. What a line up!!! Devonport Royal hosting 3 swimmers, the rest of Devon’s elite clubs only a further collective 3 swimmers. Dominating the race, Brittany brought home the gold with Rhiannon and Livvy smashing their personal bests to take 4th + 5th.
Dan Crook ensured that the boys also brought back a podium finish in the Boys 13years 100IM race. His bronze medal came courtesy of some superbly dynamic swimming in this medley event. Ten year old Finlay Bowden also gave everything in his highly competitive 100 IM race to finish a very creditable 4th in the final.
Another satisfying statistic to note was that all 5 of our finalists did personal bests under the cauldron of pressure associated with a county final race. Testimony to the hard work of all our coaching team. Well done folks and enjoy the rest of the championships.
Caroline has issued the swimmers logbook which can be found on this website on the COACH page (click here for a quick link). All squad swimmers MUST print off one copy and bring it along to their first swimming session in 2010 and Caroline has also requested that they must bring it along to the session on Wednesday 13th January.