Our latest recruit Suzanna Hext was at the Link Centre today to be presented with a Swim England South West Personal Achievement Award 2019 during the Wiltshire County Championships.

The Swim England South West Personal Achievement Award 2019 is a recognition of a Swim England members 12 months achievements up until the end of August.
Although only swimming a couple of races in 2018, Suzanna started 2019 with her sights set on qualifying for the Regional Championships, and between January – August 2019 Suzanna’s achievements have been nothing short of incredible, surpassing even her wildest dreams, highlights include:

• • Completing her GB Para Classification in January 2019 with S5, SB5 and SM5 classifications.
  • Attended the BUCS Championships at Sheffield in February 2019 setting a new Long Course 50m S5 British Record. This was Suzanna’s first ever LC competition.
  • In April, swam in the Gloucester L2 Open meet setting new S5 British Short Course records in 50m & 200m Freestyle.
  • In the above Open Meets, qualified for both the South West Regional Championships and British Championships.
  • Also in April, attended the British Para-Swimming International Meet inc. WPS World Series in Glasgow where she underwent her International Classification. Following her races in Glasgow, Suzanna was invited to join the GB Para Team at the
    Para World Championships in London in September.
  • Attended the British Championships in Glasgow in July, winning GOLD in the 50m Freestyle Multi – Classification event.

  Although not part of the original selection criteria for the South West Personal Achievement Award, Suzanna competed in the Para World Championships in September, picking up Silver and Bronze medals in the 50m and 100m Freestyle S5 category, which would give Suz S5 world rankings of No.2 and No.3 respectively. Suzanna also received a Silver in the Swim England National Personal Achievement Awards in November.

  Suzanna has just spent 3 ½ weeks in Japan with the GB Team training and is now firmly focused on the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics. The GB Team will be selected following the British Para Swimming International Meet in April 2020.

  Congratulations and welcome Suzanna
  Swindon ASC

Holly Sullivan smashed the existing Down Syndrome Junior world record by nearly 3 seconds with a time of 1:32.80.

This will help Holly in selection for the GB Team for the upcoming European championships being held in Sardinia during September 2019.

Holly started to swim when she was 4 years old at learn to swim lessons at the Swindon Oasis. With the help of her instructors and her own determination she was able to make progress over several years until she reached stage 10. At this point Holly transferred to Swindon ASC a mainstream competitive swimming club where she now trains 3 times a week. Holly is also a member of Reading Cygnets a swimming club specifically for swimmers with learning difficulties who provide additional training, support and access to competitions across the UK.

Holly is an S14 swimmer, the Para class for athletes with intellectual impairments, and has qualified to swim at County and Regional level. However because S14 is a very broad category swimmers with Down Syndrome are unable to access the elite end of this category because of a number of physical impairments which run alongside the Intellectual Impairment. To support these athletes DSISO (Down Syndrome International Swimming Organisation) was established and provide competitive swimming for Down Syndrome Athletes at National and International level. As part of DSISO Holly has been selected to swim internationally in Paris, France; Pristina, Kosovo; Truro, Canada.

Go Holly!

This awards goes to Holly Sullivan of Swindon ASC.

Holly Sullivan has been selected by the Wiltshire County Swimming Association as Swimmer of the year.
Holly was proposed by Andrea Christmas who wrote:
After being selected to swim for the British Down Syndrome swimming team in 2017 Holly has now traveled abroad 3 times with Down Syndrome Swimming GB (DSS-GB) to swimming competitions in Paris (European Open), Kosovo (invite only open meet) and Canada (for the World Championships) in July.
Holly is 14 years old and in the last year she has won international Bronze, Silver and Gold medals as part of the British freestyle relay team. Her best individual performance was 13th overall in the 50m Breaststroke at the World Championships.

Holly is simply one of the best young Down Syndrome swimmers in Britain.

If you remember, Holly also won this award last year see last year

Go Holly!

Our older swimmers took to the lake this week (Wednesday 18th July) for some paddling fun and a BBQ.
Originally this was an open-air session at Shrivenham but technical difficulties led to a last minute change of venue.
Huge THANK YOU to Bowmoor Sailing Club for allowing us to use the facilities at very short notice.

There was a bit of trepidation from the girls about getting in, but swimmers just can’t resist the call to water. All the food was demolished in pretty quick time after the swim.
Big Thank You to Marianne and Gillian for organising, and cooking the food.

Next Year?

Swindon ASC took over the Oasis for the evening on Friday 6th July for what is becoming an annual event. Swimmers, parents, grandparents, coaches, teachers, friends and siblings all joined the fun. Lifeguards never had it so easy!

Way back in 2017, Holly Sullivans swimming was recognised by the County swimming association and she was awarded the Wiltshire Swimmer of the year.
see: previous article

On Tuesday 3rd July we were finally able to give Holly her trophy. After Holly had finished her training session all the swimmers gathered and Holly was given a rousing cheer.

35 swimmers attended Wiltshire sprints event on Sunday 25th March. This meet is usually swam over 33 meters at the historic Health Hydro in Milton Road, but a late change of venue meant swimming events at 25 meters.

This did not seem to affect the swimmers, who produced remarkable swims and we were soon racking up personal best times and achieving medal winning positions.

For some swimmers this was their first experience of an individual swimming meet. A big Swindon ASC welcome to Oscar Symons, Sebastian Scutt, Ava Kayani, Naila Hidouci and Lily Miles.

We racked up a 25 age group medals,8 junior championship medal and 3 open championship medals. The boys outdoing the girls in the age-groups by 14:11.

Top achiever on the day was Tyler Checchia who won gold in four events for his age group, 3 gold and 1 silver in the junior championship (15 and under), and qualified for the mens’ finals in backstroke, butterfly and freestyle.
Our only other finalist this year was Thea who made it through to the final of the womens backstroke.
Great to see newcomers Lily Miles (backstroke bronze), and Oscar Symons (backstroke silver, breaststroke bronze, freestyle gold) getting rewarded for their efforts.

Swindon ASC sprint placings..

Congratulations to everyone who qualified for the event, a big THANK YOU to the swimmers who came along and represented the club on the day.
Thank you to all the officials, organisers and special thanks to Sarah Bailey for organising our representation so well.

Go Team!

Round 2 of the winter league was hosted by the mighty Swindon ASC at the link centre and we saw a big contribution from parents as well as coaches and committee members to get the night to run to plan; well-done everyone. The swimmers came from Warminster, Calne, Chippenham and Royal Wootton Bassett for a great night of 35 relay races across the junior and senior squad.

With rule changes affecting the age groups, this year’s campaign was always going to be more of a challenge and we had to wait until race 12 for our first (and only) win of the night which came from the mixed 9 & 10 years Breaststroke team of Molly, Seb, Freya & Ashton – WELL DONE GUYS. Still, the winter league works on both points and times to create an overall comparison against the other teams in the league so there are still plenty of reasons to achieve the best possible time in each race. And we saw plenty of great team and individual performances on the night. Alex Bailey, team captain led by example in the Boys Open 50m breaststroke making an amazing recovery in the last leg to lift the team up the rankings. A feat emulated by Ashton in the mixed 9 & 10 yrs 25m medley where he accelerated into the wall giving 100% for the team, Max Sullivan for taking on 12 races and Tyler battling with Warminster to make sure we took an extra point.

The Final Scores after 35 events were….

Royal Wootton Bassett – 124 points
Calne – 104 points
Chippenham 85 points
Swindon ASC – 70 points
Warminster – 52 points

See you all at the next round (FINALS) in Trowbridge on Saturday 10th.

REMINDER – don’t forget to back the bid… see Back the Bid

Results and times for all rounds can be found on the Wiltshire ASA web-site here

We are currently 9th in the league (expected following rule changes), and will be swimming in the ‘B’ final against Tigersharks, Warminster, Durrington and Bradford on Avon.

And the award goes to Holly Sullivan of Swindon ASC.

Congratulations to Holly Sullivan who was voted Wiltshire Swimmer for the year for the period 1st September 2016 to 31st August 2017 at the Wiltshire Amateur Swimming Association Annual General Meeting.

Holly was nominated for the award by the club for her achievements in swimming:

• Holly started competing in swimming competitions a couple of years ago. She really stood out when she took part in the Special Olympics in November 2016 where she beat the DS female world qualifying time for 50m freestyle.
• In April Holly took part in the DS European Open Championships again coming away with a clutch of medals but more notably beating an established GB swimmer in the 100m freestyle. Following from this success Holly was invited to attend the Down Syndrome GB training camp in Nottingham in May 2017.
• On 5th July Holly received the letter she had been hoping for offering her a place in the GBR team travelling to Paris for the European Championships. Some of the countries she will be competing against include Brazil, Russia, Portugal and Denmark. Holly had achieved 10 DS GB qualifying times by this point. See: Swindon Advertiser – Article
• What is particularly remarkable about Holly’s story is that at 13yrs she is at the youngest age that swimmers can qualify for the DS GB team, yet still managed 10 qualifying times against swimmers of all ages as there are no age groups in this competition.
• Holly is a pleasure to teach, always keen to work hard and to improve, training twice a week with our junior squad.
• She is a truly valued member of our club, an example to all and we are extremely proud of her achievements.

Holly received the certificate at the clubs Annual Presentation evening on 2nd December.

There is a trophy to go with the award, which was still with the previous winner Jazz Carlin, who was away at a training camp.

Congratulations Holly

Great turnout at the annual presentation evening at the County Ground on the 2nd December. Fun evening with lots of medals trophies and certificates given to reward success in recent club champs.

Big Thank you to Joe Kerrighan and Corporate Events Ltd for the marvelous surprise podium in the club colours.

Pictures of all individuals & age groups are available, ask a committee member.

Swindon ASC swimmers went 10 better than last years amazing tally of 22 age group best times by racking up a massive 32 age group best times at Club Champs during November.

This upward trend of breaking club records began in 2013 with two new records. 2014 saw this increase to 10, 2015 saw a leap to 25 new records. The coaching team thought we’d plateaued after this went down in 2016 to 22.

Some of the records may have only stood for a year, but there were also some really old records beaten. Six from prior to 1998, five from 1998-2010 and three from 2011-2015.

Congratulations to:
Sebastian Scutt, Alex Scutt, Max Sullivan, Tyler Checchia, Max Adams, Alyx Bailey, Hannah Lewington, Annabel Ollerhead, Olivia Moore, Thea Rhodes and Liberty Slowly.

All swimmers were presented with certificates to mark the achievement at the clubs presentation evening.

Round 3 of the summer league was a home fixture for Swindon and the plus sized pool at Milton Road would add new challenge for the swimmers as races in this league are categorised by the number of lengths and not distance in meters. The 1 length races were started at the shallow end to keep all finishes at the deep end and so shallow diving starts were essential for most swimmers.

The first races on the programme were the men’s and women’s open 4x1L medley and our first swimmers were Tyler (3rd) and Emily (3rd).

Max S (1st) and Molly (2nd) up next in the U12’s 1L butterfly. Molly (swimming up an age) was unlucky not to win and both swimmers got new PB’s. Up next were Craig (3rd) and Beth (3rd) up next in the U16 3L freestyle. Craig was in a close race, just missing out on 1st place in the final length.

James (3rd) and Annabel (1st) in the U14 1L Breaststroke with new PB’s. In the 3L backstroke Alyx led the whole race but the Warminster swimmer fought back hard in the final length but Alyx held on to get the touch. Liberty was in a neck and neck race with Warminster and Wroughton but just couldn’t hold on during the tail end of the race.

In the relays, George, Kyle, Max S and Finlay came in 3rd in a nail biter of a U12 boys medley. Whilst Alex S, Freya, Molly and Jayne also took 3rd for the girls in another nail biter. The U16 teams of Aaron, Craig, Tyler and James were 1st and the girls team of Beth, Olivia, Nicole and Sasha were 2nd. Aaron was 3rd with a new PB and Thea 2nd in the 1L U14 freestyle followed by Max A 2nd and Liberty 3rd in the open 3L Butterfly. Max S and Hannah up next in the U12 1L Breaststroke. The boys race was neck and neck with Max taking 1st on the touch whilst Hannah fought hard and got a new PB – well done Hannah. Tyler and Olivia both won convincingly in the U16 backstroke taking maximum points for the team.

In the next round of Relays, The U14 boys medley team of Aaron, Max S, James and Harvey took 3rd while the girls team of Emmie, Thea, Annabel and Hannah were 2nd. In the open Medley Alyx, Craig, Max A and the girls team of Sasha, Emily, Liberty and Beth with both races too close to call from the gallery.

Kyle and Hannah up next in the 1L freestyle for the U12 with both taking 1st place and both setting new PB’s in incredibly fast and close races. In the 3L butterfly. Tyler put in another convincing performance to come 1st by almost a length, whilst Nicole had to dig deep during her neck and neck race with Wroughton and Warminster to eventually take 2nd place and set a new PB.

Aaron and Emmie both took top spot in the U14 back with Emmie putting on an amazing fight back to move from 3rd place into 1st in the final third. U12 boys freestyle relay team of Finlay, Harry, George and Kyle finished 3rd and the girls team of Jayne, Hannah, Freya and Alex Sc also finished 3rd. Harvey stepped up to the U16 freestyle relay team and swam with Aaron, Craig and Tyler to take 3rd spot while the girls team of Nicole, Beth, Sasha and Olivia took 1st place in an amazing head to head with Warminster. Max S stepped up in the U14 fly along with Annabel for the girls, with both taking 2nd place

Max A in men’s open 3L free took 2nd with Emily taking 3rd. Harry was up next in the U12 1L backstroke taking 2nd place with a new PB, followed by Alex Sc for the girls who again, took top slot with a new PB – well done Harry & Alex. Craig and Sasha finished the individual races by both 3rd position in the U16 3L breaststroke.

The final round of relays saw James, Max S, Harvey and Aaron come 3rd and the girls team of Emmie, Annabel, Hannah and Thea take 2nd in the U14 Freestyle relay. The men’s open freestyle relay team of Tyler, Craig, Max A and Alyx was close to call between Swindon and Wroughton for 3rd. The woman’s team of Liberty, Olivia, Beth and Emily took 3rd.

Final scores on the night:
Warminster 148
Swindon 146
Wroughton 116
Bradford on Avon 74