29 April – 1 May 2023
Six DASC swimmers took part in the SENE Regional Championships held over the 3-day Bank Holiday weekend at the start of May at Ponds Forge International Sports Centre in Sheffield. All our swimmers were in the 16&under Youth Age Group, with Lucy Oliver young enough to be swimming in the Age Group Championships as well.
All of the events, except the 800m/1500m and relay events, had heats and finals. DASC swimmers competed under the banner of the Northumberland & Durham Performance Programme Swimming Club (N&D PP SC), with Lucy being selected for the B team in the 14-16 years 400m Freestyle Team Relay and Alex being selected for the B Team in the 14-16 years 400m Medley Team Relay swimming the Butterfly leg. These relays are for qualification into British Summer Championships so we will be waiting to see if either of those B Teams qualified.
In her final Youth year, Niamh Kay (16) swam in all 3 Breaststroke events, coming 2nd in the 50m Junior final and 4thplace in the 100m Junior final, with PBs on 100m and 200m. Lucy Oliver (14) had a busy weekend, competing against older swimmers in 5 events, some events she had swam the previous weekend at Age Groups. Lucy has qualified for British Summer Championships and English Summer Nationals so these were great practice swims for the summer. Emma Carter (15) swam a great 50m Freestyle PB to break the 30 second barrier for the first time long course.
Lewis Kestle (16) competed in 6 events, clocking up 4 long course PBs and a great 9th place finish in the final of the 50m Butterfly. Alex Morton (15) competed in sprint events in all 4 strokes, demonstrating his versatility, as well as his potential as an IM swimmer. Hugo Douglas-Reeves (15) competed in two Breaststroke events and swam so close to his recent Long Course PB times.
Each year, the standard at Open NER’s gets higher, so to have 6 qualifiers from DASC with 24 swims between them was fantastic
Head Coach, Lucy Procter