18/10/2026
🏊♀️💙 Richmond Dales – Two Weekends of Racing, Fantastic Performances and Plenty to Celebrate! 💙🏊♂️
That’s a wrap on two busy weekends of racing for Richmond Dales, with our swimmers from across the squads producing some fantastic performances at the Yorkshire Winter Swimming competition !
Last weekend, it was the turn of our Upper Age Group and Para Squad, with 21 swimmers from National, Regional and Para squads competing in Leeds. This weekend, our younger swimmers took centre stage, with 14 swimmers from our Regional, County and Development squads competing at the fantastic Ponds Forge International Sports Centre.
Across both weekends, 35 swimmers represented Richmond Dales, and the results were something to be proud of! 👏
🥈 Special congratulations to Phoebe Dilworth and Oliver Hart. Phoebe won silver medals in the 200m Freestyle and 50m Backstroke in the 14 and Over competition and Oliver won Bronze in 50m Backstroke. There were also several other top-six finishes across the weekend. Fantastic swimming by the whole team!
Our Para squad also brought home several medals.👏
🏆 A shout-out to Caleb K, who had a brilliant competition, winning silver in the 10-year-old boys’ 50m Breaststroke and bronze in the 10-year-old boys’ 100m Breaststroke. The standard of competition was tough, but Caleb rose to the challenge brilliantly!
🔥 The performances kept coming!
Our younger swimmers achieved a fantastic personal best rate of well over 85%, with many improving on times set at the recent Back to Pool and Newcastle Shrimp meets.
The coaching team were particularly impressed with the quality of skills on display. The hard work being put in during training is clearly paying off, with swimmers using their improved skills to gain places in their heats and produce faster times. Seeing swimmers apply what they have been working on and make a real difference to their races is exactly what we want to see!
👏 A special well done to our youngest swimmers: Emily W, Aria D, Daisy Y and Amy W.
Ponds Forge can be a daunting place when you first arrive, but all four stepped up, embraced the challenge and did an amazing job. You should all be very proud of yourselves!
📊 Across the two weekends:
🏊 35 swimmers competing
⏱️ 36 Lifetime Bests in the upper age groups and many more recorded across the younger age groups.
🔥 Well over 85% personal bests for our younger swimmers this weekend
A huge thank you to Jane and Chris for their team management at Leeds, and to Ruth K and Debbie J for doing a fantastic job as Team Managers at Ponds Forge. These competitions simply wouldn't run as smoothly without your time, commitment and support. 💙
Finally, it's been a really busy few weeks for everyone involved. A massive thank you to the entire coaching team for backfilling sessions and working together to ensure as many sessions as possible could run. The commitment behind the scenes is just as important as what happens on race day!
Well done to every swimmer who represented Richmond Dales over the last two weekends. The commitment, attitude, skill development and team spirit on display have been fantastic. We're proud of you all! 💙👏
Now, a little recovery before we get back to work! 😉🏊♂️
