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A team of sixteen swimmers from Diss Otters took part in two days of action in the pool at West Suffolk Swimming Clubs Neate Meet last weekend.

They came away with 31 medals (15 gold, 12 silver and 4 bronze) and another 33 top 6 finishes.

From a total of 118 individual swims the Diss team recorded an amazing 73 personal best times.

Highlights included multiple golds for Callum Blair, Thea Irvine, Matthew Munnings and Rosie Munnings. Rosie (pictured) also finished a very creditable third in the overall standings for the top girl trophy.

The club now look forward to Sunday 15th October which sees the annual Diss Otters Open being held at the UEA Sportspark.

The Diss Otters squad members were Daniel Bachu, Callum Blair, Harry Button, Olivia Chapman, Oslo Chapman, Shannon Evans, Harvey Gates, Lottie Gates, Thea Irvine, Alex Jackson, Lily-Anne Jones, Isaac Looker, Matthew Munnings, Rosie Munnings, Kara O’Dell and Matthew Tatum.

Swimmers from Diss Otters were kept busy over the weekend with three nights of competition.

Friday and Sunday night saw nearly 80 swimmers take part in the ongoing Club Championships held at Diss Leisure Centre, with some great swims by competitors of all ages, over a variety of distances. A full report on this event will appear after the clubs presentation night in the new year.

Saturday night saw two squads of swimmers sent to compete in galas at the UEA Sportspark and also St.James swimming pool in Kings Lynn.

The Sportspark gala was a development event hosted by the Great Yarmouth club. Eight Otters took to the pool coming away with a fantastic haul of 7 gold, 4 silver and 7 bronze medals from only 34 races of which 20 resulted in new personal best times.

The sixteen swimmers that went to Kings Lynn were taking part in the final of the Fenland Senior League with four other clubs, the event was hosted by the West Norfolk club whose swimmers powered to victory with a massive total of 207 points.

Diss laid second during the early part of the evening but with two races to go had slipped back to fourth. However by virtue of two second place finishes in those final two events the Otters managed to snatch third place by just two points.

Final scores were West Norfolk 207, Wisbech 139, Diss Otters 122, Thetford 120 and March 111.

Diss Otters sent teams of swimmers to two galas over the weekend, with a team of thirteen competing in the City of Norwich Midsummer Madness Meet on Saturday and a squad of thirty taking part in the Team Ipswich Surprize Gala on Sunday.

First to Norwich, which was a long course (50m) gala and out of a total of 70 swims the Otters swam 36 new personal best times, with 26 top 6 finishes, coming away with 14 podium medals.

The action at Crown Pools in Ipswich on Sunday was in the short course 25m pool and saw Diss swimmers compete in 158 races with 82 pbs, 53 top six finishes and of that total 24 were medal positions.

Next weekend sees a small but intrepid group of Diss Otters head to Whittlingham Broad in Norwich for the Regional Open Water Championships.

This event sees the end of the Season with the action reconvening in September.

A small group of Diss Otters swimmers took part in this years East of England Regional Swimming Championships over the two May bank holiday weekends.

Three swimmers, Matthew Tatum, Isaac Bachu and Cameron Day took part in the first weekends competition at the Inspire Sports Village, Luton, for swimmers aged 15 and over.

All three swimmers swam really well with new personal bests set by Isaac in the 50m butterfly and Matthew in the 50m backstroke.

Matthew Munnings flew the Diss Otters flag on his own, with coach Jamie Rush supporting him, at the UEA Sportspark at the second weekend for competitors aged 14 and under.

Matthew raced in seven events gaining new personal bests in five of them.

His highlights were the 50m and 100m butterfly where he narrowly missed making the final in both, finishing 10th and 11th respectively.

Regionals qualification times are really tough and all four swimmers should be extremely proud of their achievements.

The clubs swimmers are next in action in the Norwich Swan Sprint Trophy Meet at Wymondham on Saturday 10th June.

Picture L-R Matthew Munnings, Matthew Tatum, Cameron Day, Isaac Bachu, Jamie Rush (Head Coach), Juliet Grimes (Otters chair) and Matthew Moss (Hughes – sponsor)

Diss Otters swimmer and Diss High school pupil Will Johnson will take part in one of swimmings toughest events in July.

Will and a group of like minded swimmers from the Felixstowe area will swim the English Channel in a relay event held in the summer.

Currently in training for the event Will said, “It’s going to be tough, but we are looking to raise money through sponsorship for The Young Minds Trust which is a charity which supports children with mental health issues.”

The group have named themselves the East Coast Icicles – well named considering the channel will only be around sixteen degrees when the event takes place. The nineteen mile swim should take about fifteen hours and will see the swimmers start from Shakespeares beach near Dover and they should make landfall in France at Cap Griz Nez.

Will has swum for Diss Otters for the last few years and has foregone standard pool events to concentrate on Open water swimming and competed in the National finals last year.

The Icicles have their own fundraising page so if you would like to donate here is the link: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/eastcoasticicles

A squad of fifteen swimmers from Diss Otters travelled to Newmarket

Swimming Club’s April Open Gala on Saturday and Sunday last week.

A competition of real quality across all ages saw the Otters competing with clubs from across East Anglia in events from 50m up to 400m.

Following two tough days of racing Diss ended up taking home 27 medals (9 gold, 10 silver and 8 bronze) from a total of 88 swims.

The squad set new personal bests in exactly half of those races with Callum Blair (pictured), Daniel Bachu, Rosie Munnings and Olivia Chapman setting new marks in all of the events they took part in. Callum being the only one to round off the weekend with the 400IM.

The full squad was Shannon Evans, Rosie Munnings, Thea Irvine, Olivia Chapman, Lottie Gates, Alise Small, Imogen Grimes, Callum Blair, Harry Button, Matthew Munnings, Cameron Day, Matthew Tatum, Max Ashken, Daniel Bachu and Isaac Bachu.

The Otters see their next action in the pool at the UEA Sportspark for the City of Norwich Easter meet over the holiday weekend.