DROITWICH Dolphins have enjoyed a successful month with a variety of medals coming from three weekends of swimming meets.
The first weekend saw 24 swimmers travel to Coventry to take part in the 50m sprint where an exciting day of competition yielded 11 medals for the Dolphins as well as a number of personal bests.
Tom Dean won one gold and one silver, George Grech and Tim Quiney claimed a silver and bronze respectively, Harry Grech and Anja Kristy both claimed silver while Rebecca Hadley, Ruby Ingles and Elize Smith won a bronze medal.
Nine swimmers also made it into the top eight for their age group, enabling them to compete in a 200m individual medley final at the end of the day.
Dean, the Grech brothers, Hadley, Ingles, Kristy, Smith, Lily Smith and Quiney all took part.
The second weekend of competition saw 23 Dolphins members attend the Worcestershire County Development meet in Wolverhampton for those aged nine to 14.
This competition was even more successful for the Dolphins as they walked away with 30 medals, with Lily Smith leading the way with five golds and one silver.
William Hughes claimed two goals and a silver, Harry Grech picked up two golds and a bronze, Bethan Stokes won two golds, Elize Smith won a gold and two silvers, Ashleigh Turner claimed one gold, Erin Huxley picked up two bronzes and May Davison, Megan Evans, Georgia Fox, Felicity Quiney each won a bronze.
Six swimmers then took part in the boys and girls ‘skins knockout final’ which is held for the fastest eight swimmers who competed in the 100m individual medley.
Oliver McCullough and Harry Grech performed well in the boys, with Grech taking fourth place but the biggest achievement was in the girls final where four Dolphins took four out of the eight places on the blocks.
After a number of rounds, Elize Smith pipped Turner to claim victory.
Finally, the Dolphins’ third weekend of action saw them pick a home draw in the first round of this year’s Arena League.
The success carried on for the Dolphins as they stormed to victory with twenty wins, nine seconds and thirteen third place finishes out of 50 events.
Victories went to Ruth Hadley in the open age individual medley, back and breaststroke, Huw Hillson in the under-15s fly and breaststoke, George Grech in the under-13s freestyle and breaststroke, Alex Munro in the under-13s fly and backstroke, Will Hughes in the under-11s backstroke and freestyle, Harry Grech in the under-11s breaststroke and butterfly, Rebecca Hadley in the open freestyle and Ashleigh Turner in the under-15s backstroke.
There were also victories in the under-13s medley and freestyle relays where Grech and Munro were joined by Guy Duffy and McCullough and the under-15s freestyle relay where Hillson was joined by Grech, Munro and Oliver Retter.
The gala was then brought to a close with two fantastic wins for both the ladies and men’s freestyle relay teams consisting of Ruth and Rebecca Hadley, Georgia Appleton, Elle Mortimer, Elize Smith, Anja Kristy, George Grech, Huw Hillson, Tom Dean, Tim Quiney, Tom Evans and Chris Jenkinson.
