Medal Haul for Kelly's Disability Swimmers

4th - 5th November 2006

Five Kelly College swimmers were in action at the Disability Sport Events National Short Course championships over the weekend of 4th and 5th November held in Sheffield . This was the last chance three of the swimmers had to practise their race skills ahead of the World Championships in Durban starting on the 2nd December. David Hill, Claire Cashmore and Louise Watkin have been selected for Great Britian together with their coach Robin Brew. They have just returned from warm weather training over the half term in Lanzarote straight to the DSE competition.

All swimmers had a fantastic competition with all five swimmers gaining personal best times in most of their events and an impressive medal haul. Claire Cashmore did well in her new number one event breaking the British Record in both the 50m and 100m Breaststroke together with 4 gold, 1 silver and 1 bronze. David Hill gained 5pb's , 2 gold 3 silver and a bronze, he enjoyed the competition having had a good race in his number one event 100m Backstroke, where he is ranked number 4 in the world. Louise Watkin who is the youngest of the three at just 14 gained valuable experience from the weekend, gaining pb's in all her events with 1 gold, 3 silver and 1 bronze medal.

The two other Kelly swimmers who are on disability development programmes enjoyed their weekend. Jan Langton came home with 1 silver and 2 bronze medals and personal best times in five of her events. This was just reward for the hard training she has been doing since the summer. Sarah-Kate Timms who has only been at Kelly College since September saw the benefits this weekend of the new training programme at Kelly College with four personal best, 3 golds and a silver medal.

Martyn Stacey, the Kelly County coach accompanied the swimmers to his first National Disability competition, said he was pleased with how Kelly's disability swimmers had performed over the weekend against some of not only Britain's best but some of the world leaders in disability swimming. There will be no rest though and all swimmers will be back in pool tomorrow at Kelly College .

We would like to wish David, Claire and Louise all the best in South Africa as they head out on the 20 th November to South Africa for a training camp ahead of the World's.