Year of achievements for Thirsk swimming club despite closure of home pool for refurbishment

While the pool at Thirsk and Sowerby Leisure Centre was closed for the centre to be refurbished, the club's swimmers continued to train hard at various pools across the area, who found pool time for them to keep swimming.

All galas were cancelled until July due to the pandemic, but Thirsk were still able to hold the British Long Distance Swimming Association Challenge Swim. In the challenge, the club's more experienced swimmers swam for an hour and the younger swimmers for 30 minutes, trying to cover as many metres as they could. Thirsk won team medals in every age group including eight national golds, with Archie Norton swimming 4540m in one hour.

In anticipation of a return to racing, Swim England introduced a new competition, called Level X, to enable swimmers to compete within their clubs and then submit their times to be ranked against other swimmers across the country. Not only did Level X allow many of of Thirsk's young athletes to qualify for the Yorkshire Swimming Championships, some for the first time, but bronze medals were won by Will Dale-Wood in 50m fly and head coach Jo Waterworth in both 50m breaststroke and 100 IM.

Will Dale-Wood and Jo Waterworth with their Level X medals

After a successful Yorkshire Championships, with another good medal haul including Championship golds for Archie Norton and Ben Dale-Wood, eight swimmers went on to compete at the North East Regional Championships at Ponds Forge International Sports Centre in Sheffield. Evie Almack, Ben Dale-Wood, Will Dale-Wood, Oliver Mayger, Archie Norton, Toby Ryder and William Taylor all earned their club NER hats, with a bronze medal for Ben in the 50m freestyle. Ben has also been invited to attend the National Talent Camp, while his younger brother Will has been selected for a place at the North East Regional Talent Camp.

Meanwhile, Kiki Fletcher competed in the Independent Schools National Swimming Finals at the Olympic Park in London. She had an amazing swim at this very special venue, coming home with gold medals for the individual 50m freestyle and as part of the North Schools freestyle relay team.

Kiki Fletcher

The culmination of the swimming year was the Swim England National Winter Championships, and for the first time for many years two swimmers from the club achieved qualifying times. Head coach Jo, whose Level X results qualified her for the Masters event, won a bronze medal in the 200m individual medley along with top ten finishes in 50m breaststroke and 100 IM. Archie Norton went on to compete in the 50m freestyle, achieving a blistering personal best of 24.73 seconds, putting him amongst the fastest swimmers in the country in the 15 to 16 years age group, and competing alongside Olympians.

A spokesperson for the club said: "We would like to congratulate all our swimmers on their success and look forward to a busy 2022 back in our home pool at Thirsk.

"If you have an aspiring young swimmer who would like to join us, or indeed, if you are a swimmer yourself and would like to be part of our Masters squad, please contact the club at thirskswimteam@gmail.com."