SAST

At our AGM, we announced our new Club Captains for the 2026/2027 season, and we wanted to properly introduce them to you all...

They are Connie and Jasper, who will be supported by Madison!

Well done swimmers and we look forward to seeing you about supporting our swimmers at a variety of events! First up in our Awards in September…

Congratulations to the following swimmers for being selected on to Scottish Swimming's Squad Programme for the 2026/2027 season:

Youth Academy
Sophie Anderson
Jasper Broome
Gracie Haddow
Connie Hart

Junior Academy
Ben Freestone
Jamie Pitt

Disability Squad
Christian HillRachel Hill
Emma ImrieCerys McCrindle
Nicole Millar

The swimmers have been selected due to their performances across the 2025/2026 season, and will take part in a number of different training days during the season.

It was also nice to see a number of former SAST swimmers in some of the senior squads, with Lucy Grieve (University of Stirling) and Charlotte Hardy (Edinburgh Uni) in the National Senior Team and Benji Jeffreys (University of Stirling) in Senior Academy.

We are delighted to have so many swimmers, past and present, involved in squads for this season. Well done everyone!

This weekend has seen our first external competition of the season, with many of our swimmers making the short journey down to the Portal in Irvine for North Ayrshire's early season meets.

Yesterday saw 40 swimmers, aged 12 years and over, race at the Age Group Development Meet.

Whilst still very early in the season, our swimmers swam well, and more importantly, took a lot away from their races. We are excited to see them work on these in training before our next competition later on in the season. Well done swimmers!

It was also great to see so many SAST officials on poolside helping out with the running of the meet, especially some of our younger officials gaining experience in new roles!

Good luck to our 20 swimmers, aged 11 years and under, taking part in the Children's Graded Meet today!

Well done to Jamie for his selection for the West District team that will compete at the upcoming National County Team Championships! The meet takes place in Sheffield on Sunday 4th October.

It sees approximately 40 teams from around the country (including teams from the East District and North / Midlands Districts in Scotland) compete in 2 divisions, with the aim of finishing as high as possible in the team standings. The West Districts team has finished 6th and 5th in the last two years and go into this year with similar aspirations!

Good luck to Jamie and the whole team!

A massive thanks to Lucy Grieve for coming along to our Meet the Team and Sprints event on Saturday!

It was also great to see so many come along to the event, with our Committee and new Executive pleased to see lots of new faces!

Lucy was part of the club for 10 years before joining the University of Stirling in 2022 where she continues to go from strength to strength.

It was great to have Lucy back at the club to show off her medal from the Commonwealth Games this summer as well as share her knowledge and experience with our swimmers, and they took full advantage!

We were also delighted to be able to present Lucy with a Life Membership of the club in recognition of her time as a swimmer as well as her ongoing success at British and International level - well done Lucy and we can't wait to see what you can achieve in the next few years!

Eleven years ago, one of our coaches, Kim McConville left South Ayrshire Swim Team and returned to her home in Perth, Australia. Kim had been involved with SAST for 14 years through her children, Eilidh, Finn and Rory, swimming with the club before becoming a coach of Prestwick Development Squad, Junior Squad and was one of the initial coaches with our Para Squad. Before she left, she donated a trophy which was to be awarded to a swimmer in one of the Development Squads who has shown a high level of commitment, sportsmanship and care for their fellow teammates.

As always, the coaches had a challenging job of selecting a winner, with the number of new swimmers in Development on top of the hard work and desire to improve on show from everyone.

This year's winner tries very hard at all times and has come a long way in a short period of time. They encourage their team mates at competitions and is a very good team player, especially at training. They even put themselves forward for a 200m IM in March of this year at Dumfries, having only joined Development in November!

The winner of the Kim McConville Sportsmanship Award for season 2025/2026 is Ethan K from Prestwick Development Squad. Well done Ethan!

A massive thank you to Lucy Grieve for presenting this award!

REMINDER - LAST FEW DAYS TO SIGN UP FOR OUR NEXT COME AND TRY SESSION

We only have a few spaces remaining so please sign up ASAP - sign up will remain open until the session is full.

We are looking for grow our Transition and Development Squads and our upcoming Come and Try Session is aimed at welcoming new swimmers to the club. These sessions are specifically for swimmers aged 10 and under (at the start of 2026) who are competent across all four swimming strokes (Butterfly not essential) and comfortable in deep water.

If swimmers are in South Ayrshire Council's Learn to Swim program, we will consider swimmers in Skills 4 or above.

Our next 'Come and Try Session' will take place on:
Tuesday 11th August 2026, 7.00-8.00pm @ Citadel, Ayr

To sign up, please click here:
https://uk.gomotionapp.com/team/sast/page/system/res/22458

Any questions before then, please contact [email protected]

Visit https://uk.gomotionapp.com/team/sast/page/how-to-join for more information

We are delighted that Cerys has been selected to represent Great Britain at the 12th World Down Syndrome Swimming Championships!

The event will take place in Albufeira, Portugal from 30th October to 7th November.

Cerys is part of a 29 strong team that aims to build on previous years success at international competitions.

Good luck Cerys!

Our 2025/2026 season concluded a few weeks ago with two relay teams competing at the 2026 Aquatics GB Next Gen Championships in Sheffield!

We had two relay teams qualify based on their performances during the qualification window between March and May - with the Scottish National Age Group Championships being our only opportunity to qualify.

Our teams and results were as follows:

Male/Open 14-16 years 4x200m Freestyle Relay - Jasper, Max, Lewis, Sam - finishing 27th

Male/Open 14-16 years 4x100m Freestyle Relay - Jasper, Max, Blair Sam - finishing 25th

A massive well done to the boys for qualifying and their performances at the meet!

The swimming at the Commonwealth Games starts today!

We can't wait to see Team Scotland in action, especially former SAST swimmer Lucy Grieve (now of the University of Stirling) who will be racing individually in the 50m Butterfly (Friday morning heats) and the 100m Butterfly (Sunday morning heats)! Semi-finals and Finals take place in the evening sessions and you may also catch Lucy if she is selected in some of the relay teams as well!

Good luck to the whole team, especially Lucy!

We know that a number of our members have tickets for the Games and we hope you enjoy the experience, and especially the swimming! You can also catch everything on HBO Max, where all of the action will be streamed. This will cost £5.99 for the next month (make sure you cancel the subscription so it doesn't become a recurring cost!). Alternatively highlights will be available on BBC Alba (in Gaelic) and Channel 5 each night.