On Saturday 1st October Holly swam at the Down Syndrome Internationa Swimming Organisation – British Nationals held in Rugby.

This short course event exclusively for swimmers with Down’s Syndrome was attended by swimmers from all over Britain and included teams from Bristol, Newcastle, Reading, Chester, Harrogate and Scotland to name a few and like all the Down’s and multi-disability swimming events Holly has attended this event had an inclusive, accessible and festival feel to it.

Heats were raced based on entry time rather than age which meant that Holly, at 12 was racing against swimmers twice her age or more! Medals were awarded for the first 3 finishers in each heat and a cups were awarded to the swimmer with the overall fastest time.

Swimmers were limited to 3 races and Holly picked the 100m freestyle (or 4 lengths front crawl as Holly would say), 50m freestyle and the 50m breaststroke. Diving starts and legal turns gave Holly a competitive edge and she finish in 2nd place in all 3 of her heats and her times were good enough to place her 2nd overall in the woman’s 100m freestyle, 2nd overall in the woman’s 50m breaststroke and 3rd overall in the woman’s 50m freestyle.

Well done Holly.

Swindon ASC

The third and final block of the Wiltshire Masters series was held in Salisbury on the 1st October
2016. A total of 14 clubs from across the county were in attendance with Swindon (ASC) represented
by just two swimmers, Paul Wise and Tracey Sharland. Paul entered 4 events with conservative
predicted times, having not competed in several years! He went on to surpass his expectations and
achieved faster than his predicted times in all 4 races. In a very competitive age group, Paul
managed to place 5th in the 100m IM and 25m Backstroke and 6th in the 50m Freestyle and 25m
Butterfly. Tracey also entered 4 events and managed personal best times in the 25m Backstroke and
25m Butterfly. She went on to win 3 gold medals, including the 50m Breaststroke, 25 Butterfly and
25m Backstroke, but was unfortunately pipped to the post at the finish on the 50m freestyle to
settle for second place.

As the scores from all three events have been combined Swindon (ASC) finished in 10th place, despite
only having 4 representing swimmers in the competition across block 1 to 3. The club did manage a
top 10 place in the overall rankings with Tracey Sharland placing 10th with 23 points. Marianne
Bennison finished the season in 21st place with 12 points, Georgie Manning in 45th with 2 points and
Paul Wise in 52nd with 4 points.

The series recommences in the February 2017 and Swindon will be back to pick up where they left
off and hopefully take a few more points on the way.