“Every Little Helps”

Sedgefield District 75 Swimming Club would like to say a huge thank you to Tesco Newton Aycliffe, their staff and the amazing generosity of the local community for their donations to our bag pack on Sunday 24th March. The club have been overwhelmed by the kindness of everyone and really do appreciate every single penny that was given – it certainly was a case of every little helps! We are proud to say that thanks to Tesco and their shoppers we are now able to buy the special back stroke start wedges that will enable our talented swimmers to practice and improve the back stroke dives that they need for competition.

While some swimmers and their parents were raising money this weekend, 4 others were competing at 3 different events in various parts of England. Matthew Bradley competed at the Billingham Masters Meet on Saturday 23rd March. Matthew who now works for Gestamp swam in 5 events taking 3 gold medals, 3 silver and a bronze, a brilliant result from his continued hard work as shift working does not always make regular training easy.

Niall Coulthard also competed this weekend at the ESSA Competition (English Schools Swimming Association) outside London. The event held in a 50m pool in Crawley saw him swim 3 events, 200 freestyle, 400 freestyle and 4 x 100 freestyle relay. He took a silver and bronze medal personally and the North East region won overall.

Finally, but importantly, over the same weekend Leah Smith and Emma Price competed at the Sunderland National Qualifier Meet. With no medals awarded at this event, achieving qualifying times for the Regional Championships to be held in Leeds in May was in the sights of our two swimmers. Both girls achieved 2 personal best times, Leah who got PBs in 50 freestyle and 50 fly then secured Regional Championship times in these 2 events. Emma’s PBs in 100m Breaststroke and 400m Individual Medley (where she took an incredible 27 seconds off her previous time), also secured her 2 Regional Championship target times.

Thanks to everyone who represented and supported the club this weekend whether swimming or fundraising!