Summer Sprint Presentation Evening Saturday 23rd July 2011


On Saturday 23^rd July 2011 Barry Amateur Swimming Club held its annual Summer Sprints Presentation evening at Sully Sport and Social Club. Every year the swimmers pray for sunshine as they like to play outside and this year they were not disappointed as it was a lovely sunny evening.

Hanna Guise development officer for Swim Wales was invited to present the medals and trophies by Chairperson Heulwen Cooper who announced the winners.

The competition for these medals was held in May and it is over 25 metres for 8 and under in all four strokes and 50 metres for all other age groups. This event is for all swimmers in the club and in some cases it is the first time that swimmers have competed.

Medals were given out to the first 6 swimmers in each age group for each stroke. Then a trophy was presented to the swimmers in each age group who gained the most points over all. 6 points for a win down to 1 point for 6^th place.

In the 8 and under age group Ffion McCulloch took first place in all four stokes. Thomas Insole in the boys 8 and under age group took first place in the Fly, Breast and Back stroke and with Evan Morgan taking first place in the Front Crawl.

Kate Prynne in the 9 and 10 year age group had some very good swims and took first places in the Fly, Back and Front Crawl with Molly Hopkins taking first in the Breast. Declan Ewington in the boys 9 and 10 age group came first in the Fly, Back and Front Crawl with Luke Birnage taking first in the Breast Stroke.

In the 11 and 12 year age group Bethan Williams gained first place in the Fly and Breast with Ffion Vickers gaining first place in the Back and Front Crawl. In the boys 11 and 12 age group Shaun Bowden gained first places in the Fly and Breast and Ryan Connor in the Back and Front Crawl.

Georgia Looker in the 13 and 14 year age group had a fantastic competition and took first place in all four strokes. Not to be out done in the boys 13 and 14 year age group Kieran Knowles also gained first place in all four strokes.

With a mixture of girls winning their age groups in the 15 and 16 year old girls races Alice Lewis won the Fly, Alana Wilson Breast and Back and Danielle Davies the Front Crawl. In the boys 15 and 16 year age group Jonathan Bowden took first place in the fly and Jonathan Haggett took first places in the Breast, Back and Front Crawl.

In the Open age group Philippa Wheeler took first place in the Breast, Back and Front Crawl opting out of swimming the fly. In the Boys Open event Rhys Perry took first place in all four strokes.

Trophies were then given out to the overall winners by Hanna. In the 8 and under age group the trophy went to Ffion McCulloch with the top points scored of 24 and Thomas Insole only dropping one point with 23. In the 9 and 10 age group Kate Prynne won with 22 points and for the boys Declan Ewington also only dropping one point scoring 23. In the 11 and 12 year age group Ffion Vickers gained 19 points to win the trophy and Shaun Bowden for the boys with 22 points. Georgia Looker and Kieran Knowles in the 13 and 14 year age group both took the trophies with the maximum amount of points scored. Alana Wilson in the 15 and 16 year age group gained the trophy with 21 points and dropping only 1 points Jonathan Hagget with 23 points for the boys. Philippa Wheeler in the Open age group gained the trophy with 18 points and Rhys Perry with 21 points. Well done to all the swimmers in the event.

After handing out Silicone Swimming hats to all the swimmers that had been very generously donated by Centrica at Barry Power Station on Sully Mores Road Hanna then handed out badges to all the swimmer who took part in the Long Distance Postal Swim. This event is held in February by the British Long Distance Swimming Association. Swimmers from all over the United Kingdom take part in this event swimming as many lengths of the pool as possible in 1 hour. All the distances are then sent to the Association and then the results are then declared in about June/July time.

Barry Amateur Swimming Club always have strong entries into this event and the Club also uses it as a marker to show year on year improvement for the swimmers.

This year Barry Boys A Team gained consisting of Shaun Bowden, Declan Ewington and James Hamer gained 2^nd place in the 10 and under age group with a distance of 9375 metres and were presented with silver medals. Both the 10 and under Girls B Team and 13 age group Girls C Team 13 gained 4^th place. Clare Parry one of our parents swam in the event and gained a silver medal swimming 3725 meters in the 1 hour. Victoria Allan-Curtis gained a Gold medal in the H3 disabled group with a distance of 2300 metres.

The club then presented Hanna and Heulwen with some lovely flowers for all their hard word during the evening by Ellie Ingram and Ben Ewington.