Flitwick Dolphins Swimmers Reap Rewards at DSE Short-Course Nationals

Flitwick Dolphins S.C. disability swimmers Samantha Tilbury and Claire Warne travelled to Sheffield last weekend to compete at the Disability Sport Events/Nationwide Short Course National Swimming Championships. The clubmates were part of the East region team at this prestigious event which for the first time had an international flavour with competitors from Italy, Spain, Belarus, South Africa, Netherlands, Portugal, Brazil and Canada, giving a very high calibre of competition.

Claire (14), a member of the World Class Development Squad, continued her build-up towards the Paralympic trials next March and April with some solid performances at the event. She faced stiff competition in the S5 classification from World Championship medallist Teresa Perales (Spain) who is 18 years older than her, but acquitted herself admirably with good personal bests in 100 and 200m freestyle, 100m breaststroke and 50m butterfly where she was delighted to take nearly 4 seconds off her existing British Record mark. She was an agonising 7/100s of a second off her own European record in the 200m I.M. Claire came away with 4 first places, 3 second places (as 1st GB swimmer behind Teresa) and 1 third place.

Claire had another reason to celebrate at the weekend as just before the competition started she heard she had been short listed in the final 10 for the BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year Award. She now faces a 3-week wait to see if she will be in the top three and gain an invite to the Awards at the NEC on Sunday 9th December.

For student Sam (16) this was her first major disability-only competition since she was classified as a visually impaired swimmer earlier this year. Turning in some good performances in the S13 classification she swam 4 personal bests in 100m backstroke, 400m freestyle, 200m I.M. and 50m freestyle and came away with 5 firsts, 2 seconds, and 1 third place, as well as helping her regional team mates to the top spot in two relays. Sam was particularly happy with her 7-second personal best in 200m I.M. as this is an event she has been working hard at for some time. Sam’s good performances again got her noticed by British Disability Swimming coach, Steve Fivash who commented that she has good potential. Hopefully Sam will be joining Claire on the Development Squad in 2008.

The girls’ solid performances helped their regional team to second place in the overall event.

Both Sam and Claire are now concentrating on their next competition, the Welsh Disability Nationals in December, which will be their last long course event before the Paralympic trials.

To find out more about Flitwick Dolphins or to arrange a trial, please phone Ann Wren on 01525 872107 after 6pm.

4 November 2007