Dorset County ASA

Dorset County ASA Long Service Awards

July 21, 2018 By Dorset ASA

The dedication of those working on behalf of the County Association has for the first time been acknowledged by the presentation of Dorset County ASA Long Service Awards, which took place at this year’s Annual General Meeting in June. The award acknowledges seven or more years of continuous service in a County post or role crucial to the functioning of the County Association and will be awarded annually in future years. However, in reality, many of those receiving these awards have already clocked up far more than the required seven years and the sum total of years’ service of those receiving awards in 2018 is well in excess of 150 years!

Dorset County ASA Long Service awards were made to the following County post holders: Gordon Smart (ASA Council Representative), Ray Honeybun (Chairman and Swimming Committee Secretary), Gerry Griffin (Retiring Treasurer), Tony Mullins (Auditor), Andy Smart (Inter-County Competitions Secretary), Stuart Platts (County Competitions Secretary), Beth Stannard (Diving Secretary), Dave Bradley (Water Polo Secretary), Jill Beard (Officials Secretary and Officials Regional Representative), Gina Wilcox (Volunteer Secretary). For services in a role crucial to the functioning of the County Association awards were made to the following: Di Gibbs (Administration services), Roger Guttridge (Masters Competitions team management), John Gibbs (County Competitions services), Jamie Druce (Website design and management).

Above: Long Service Awards presented at the 2018 Annual General Meeting (l-r) Stuart Platts, Gerry Griffin, Dave Bradley, Di Gibbs, Andy Smart, Gordon Smart, Roger Guttridge, Ray Honeybun, Tony Mullins and Gina Wilcox, with DCASA President Steve Meter (Weymouth) and retiring President Chris Gassmann (North Dorset Turbos). Jill Beard and John Gibbs were presented with their awards at the 2018 Dorset Development Competition.

Seagulls on the BBC

July 21, 2018 By Dorset ASA

On a sunny morning in June, DCASA members tuning into the BBC Breakfast television programme were surprised to see Avon Beach in Mudeford and open water swimmers from Christchurch club Seagulls SC playing a starring role. Having received a last minute call from the BBC the previous evening, Head Coach Martin Littlefair and a few of the club’s open water swimmers turned up to provide “local interest” and chat to weather presenter Carol Kirkwood which was then followed by an early morning swim in a mirror-flat sea. The live broadcast was made in front of hundreds of thousands of viewers, but with only a handful of local dog walkers on Avon Beach. Weather presenter Carol Kirkwood continued to deliver live weather forecasts from the beach’s golden sands throughout the morning.

Left: Seagulls Head Coach Martin Littlefair with BBC weather presenter Carol Kirkwood.

Below: (l-r) Simon McLaughlin, Zak Dunning, Carol Kirkwood, Martin Littlefair and Seagulls Chairman David McWilliam.

Alice and Jacob do Dorset proud!

April 12, 2018 By Dorset ASA

It was an impressive debut performance at the 2018 Commonwealth Games for Alice Tai and Jacob Peters who will be returning from Australia’s Gold Coast with three medals between them and with records broken at both national and county level.

Alice Tai, who currently trains at the British Para-Swimming performance centre in Manchester but represents BCS competitively, made history by winning England’s 100th swimming gold since the Games started in 1930 in the Women’s S9 100m Backstroke. Already the World Record holder for this event, and qualifying fastest in the morning heats, she romped home in the final with a time of 1:08.77 over 2.5 secs ahead of Australia’s Ellie Cole and Ashleigh McConnell.

With one gold under her belt, Tai was set to go into the Women’s S9 100m Freestyle as the second-place favourite to Ellie Cole but in a hard-fought finish both were pipped at the post by Australia’s Lekeisha Patterson. Tai’s silver medal winning swim of 1:03.07 knocked nearly three-quarters of a second from her previous best time, and was just 0.05 sec behind Patterson and 0.29 sec ahead of bronze medallist Cole.

In his first international at Senior level, Poole’s Jacob Peters swam nine races in six days, reaching all three Butterfly finals and collected a silver medal as an England heat swimmer in the Men’s 4 x 100m Medley relay.

At each stage of the 50m Butterfly event Peters lowered his Dorset County Record, achieving 24.00 in the final. In the semi-final he shaved 0.06 sec from Ben Proud’s British Age Group Record (17yrs) only to lower that record again in the final. Peters now holds the British Age Group Records for all three Butterfly distances.

Peters qualified seventh for the 200m Butterfly final in 1:58.42, then produced 1:57.75 to place fifth overall. Going into the 100m Butterfly, Peters placed sixth in the heats in 53.72, equal sixth in the semis in 53.40 and finished joint fifth with Canada’s Joshua Binnema in 53.11. His form earned Peters a place in the Men’s 4 x 100m Medley relay heats along with Elliott Clogg, James Wilby and David Cumberlidge, qualifying second behind Australia for the final. England’s team of Luke Greenbank, Adam Peaty, James Guy and Ben Proud finished just 0.09 sec behind the Australians in the final, winning silver medals for the four heat swimmers as well as themselves.

Swim England South West Masters Training Day

March 5, 2018 By Dorset ASA

A Masters Development Day is to take place on Sunday 13 May 2018 at the University of Bath. The programme will include a two-hour pool session, a yoga/strength and conditioning session, an optional extra swim or Q&A session together with presentations by Masters multi-world record holder Jane Asher, sports psychologist Dr Karen Howells and Swim England National Masters Officer Sharon Lock. Places are limited to 36 and will be given on first-come first-served basis. Initially places will be offered to members of South West region clubs until Thursday 19 April, when the event will be offered to Masters from out of region. Timetable is 8.45am to 5.15pm and cost £25. Bookings will only be accepted once payment has been made. For an application form click here.

Swim England President visits Dorset Championships

March 5, 2018 By Dorset ASA

Swim England President Richard Whitehead was a welcome visitor to this year’s Dorset County Championships where four County Records were broken during the first weekend and ten new Competition Best Times set in the age groups records over the five days of competition. The Championships was also attended by Somerset ASA President Alison Bashford on the final day.

Kayla van der Merwe (BCS) lead the record-breaking on the first day with an impressive performance in the 100m Breaststroke with a winning time of 1:09.48, which took almost a second off the Dorset Junior Record held for 18 years by former ASA National Champion Charlotte Evans of Bournemouth Dolphins.

Two months before making his Commonwealth Games debut, Jacob Peters (Poole) went on to slice 0.76 sec from the Dorset Senior Record with a time of 58.91 for 100m Individual Medley held by Ferndown’s Dominic MacDonald since 2008 and followed this by smashing three seconds from his own 400m Individual Medley Senior record in a time of 4:34.17.

With the reverse long distance events reintroduced for 2018 and last swum in the Championships in 2010, it was inevitable that some records would fall and Emily Clarke (Poole) did not disappoint. Her winning time of 16:41.02 for 1500m Freestyle slashed 23 seconds off the Senior County Record held by Bournemouth Dolphins’ Danielle Francis since 2008. Fourteen year old Alex Palotai-Avella’s (Swim Bournemouth) Senior bronze and Junior gold time of 17:36.52 was also less than four seconds off the Junior County Record held since 2006 by Bournemouth Dolphins’ Kimberley Rowles, which bodes well for the record to be soon broken.

Oliver Fairman (Poole) gave a confident performance in the 1500m Freestyle at Dorchester to retain his Senior title with a time of 16:25.90 but the male distance events also proved to be a triumph for Seagulls SC with James Richardson, Miles Ward and Sonny Chamberlain-Hyde picking up four of the six Championships medals in each of the 1500m and 800m Freestyle events.

It was Bournemouth Collegiate’s Ella Chown who dominated the podium by taking a total of 12 Championship golds with both Senior and Junior medals for 200m Butterfly, 200m Individual Medley and 50m Butterfly and Junior Medals for 200m, 100m and 50m Freestyle, 100m and 50m Butterfly, 200m Breaststroke and 50m Backstroke. Her 200m Butterfly time of 2:20.38 also knocked four seconds off the 15 years CBT, held since 1992 by Ferndown’s former British Butterfly champion Sam Greenep. The Junior 50m Freestyle gold was shared with Poole’s Ella McNamara.

Highlights of the age group CBTs were Jacob Peters’ 100m Freestyle time of 50.88 which toppled the 17+ years record held by Seth Chappels (Ferndown) since 2004 and, at the very youngest end of the competition, Peters own 50m Freestyle CBT from 2011 for the 9-10 years age group falling to Swim Bournemouth’s Hugo Young with a time of 31.06. Poole’s Jasmine McCrea also sliced over half a second off the Senior CBT for 100m Butterfly held by Alex Savage (Ferndown) from 2005 while Ella Chown (BCS) lowered the 15 years CBT held by Lydia McManus (Ferndown) since 2007.

Photo: Swim England President Richard Whitehead (right) and Dorset County ASA President Chris Gassmann (left) present County Record certificates to Bournemouth Collegiate’s Kayla van der Merwe and Poole’s Jacob Peters and Jasmine McCrea at Littledown on Saturday 17 February 2018.

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