Warwick Thompson Memorial Gala 2023 Report

Following the fantastic performances achieved by Diss Otters at the Norfolk County Swimming Championships at the UEA Sportspark last month, a team of 21 swimmers took to Thetford  on the weekend of 25-26th February for the Warwick Thompson Memorial Gala.
Personal best times were achieved by 19 of these swimmers in at least one of their events, which spanned distances from 50m to 200m and across all four strokes and the individual medley. A special mention goes to Ashleigh Fall, Connie Ellingham, Eleanor Godbold, Frances Guerin, Nia Jones, Olivia Brewer, Oscar Rush, Peter For and Sasha Spinks who hit new best times in every event they swam across the weekend including several improvements of 10 seconds or more. In total Diss achieved 69 new PBs from the 92 races swum.
Every meet the team enter is another stepping stone on their competitive swimming journey. These events give the swimmers the opportunity to put all their hard work in training to the test. We saw some superb development with our starts and turns and a real effort to hold form with their strokes as they sprinted each and every time they took to the pool.
The hard work resulted in all those new personal best times and furthermore Diss Otters picked up a total of 26 medals over the course of the weekend. We had bronze medals for Daisy Lewis, Jeanie Shurmer, Lily Ellis and Sophie Rochester, silver medals for Adam Lelean, Ashleigh Fall, Daisy Lewis, Eleanor Godbold, James Guerin and Liz Ferrier and gold medals for Adam Lelean, James Guerin, Liz Ferrier, Olivia Brewer and Oscar Rush.
Rebecca Fletcher showed resilience throughout the meet pulling off her best swim in the 50m backstroke with a 3 second PB whilst older sister Abigail Fletcher smashed 3 PBs in 4 races in quick succession in the morning session on the Sunday. Ananya Chaudhary also set 3 new best times with her a massive 12 second PB in the 100m front crawl. Strong swims for Ruby Welch saw her set big personal bests in the 200m individual medley and 50m backstroke, Seren Jones hit 4 new best times, shining in the 50m and 200m breaststroke and finally Sophie Rochester who hit 3 out of 4 events with new PBs only missing out by half a second in the 4th.
Jamie Rush, Coach at the event, said, “Undoubtedly this is a superb set of statistics. Everyone works so hard in training, and all the swimmers turned up prepared. We had some brilliant splits in 200m races showing great fitness, we smashed some big PBs in 100m events showing improvements in speed endurance and terrific racing in the 50s listening to race strategies and performing under pressure.”

Diss Otters Swimming Club once again holding their own in the County!