It has been a hectic few weeks since we last posted a report about the progress of Tenby Dolphins swimmers, and in that time various club members have been involved in several galas as well as the continuing round of training with club, county and beyond.

A selection of our swimmers have taken part in one or more, of no less than seven competitions since the last article, so we are clearly a little bit behind on the reporting. Apologies in advance for any omissions.

Team Competition Results

The first event to report was entitled the Interclub Junior Development Meet, and was held at Pembroke Leisure Centre on April 26, and was attended by swimmers from the five Pembrokeshire clubs.

This gala was aimed at swimmers of 12 years and under, so none of our older athletes were in attendance.

Tenby sent a large team, and enjoyed considerable success on the day. Those members of the team who recorded first place finishes were: Dominic Belli, Harry Cook, Carys Davies, Dan Davies, Ffion Davies, Hazel Fox, Billy Greenwood, Kaitlyn Hicks, Jodie Jenkins, Myles Johnson, Talia Merriman, Hannah Saunders and Stephen Ward.

Many other club members swam on the day, and head coach John Amos and junior team manager Sarah Hicks were very pleased with how the team performed. Well done to all of you.

Due to the cancellation of the local league competition, no further team events have taken place. However, we have good news on this subject which we will discuss later in this report.

Open Competition Results

The annual Swansea Valley Junior Open took place at Neath Leisure Centre on the weekend of May 9 and 10. This has traditionally been a very friendly and well run event where our swimmers have enjoyed considerable success in the past.

This year, 12 of our club members entered, namely: Harry Cook, Dan Davies, Ffion Davies, Elliot Hoad, Myles Johnson, Talia Merriman, Casie Paxton, Ben Rees, Kiera Slack, Niamh Slack and Stephen Ward.

Carrying on her recent run of gala successes, Ffion Davies had a very good meet winning all bar one of her events, despite not really hitting the high spots in terms of recording new personal best times (PB's).

This is very encouraging and shows that she has the ability to dig deep and win races even when not firing on all cylinders. Well done Ffion.

Brother Dan also had a good weekend and picked up two gold medals, and made the podium on several other occasions.

In the nine years girls category, Talia won two silvers and recorded six good new PB's, to reinforce her impressive improvements over the past months. Similarly, Ben Rees had a good couple of days in the nine years boys category, winning three gold and one silver medal, and Stephen Ward won a silver medal in the 400m freestyle. Harry Cooke, also aged nine, and competing in one of his first open meets, won gold in the 200m freestyle.

Finally, county swimmer Niamh Slack won a silver and two bronze medals in the 12 years girls age group.

Well done to all of you. We hear that it was a fun meet once again.

Next on the calendar was the Swim Swansea Long Course Open, which was held over the weekend of May 15 to 17.

This is a Level One long course event, and as such has strict qualifying times and is aimed at slightly older swimmers. For various reasons, we have over the past year lost many of our senior group, so logically the Tenby club entry was rather low, with just Bethan Davie, Matt Davie and Swansea-based Andrew James taking part.

Nevertheless, it was disappointing to see so few other Pembrokeshire swimmers in attendance. Those with ambitions to further their swimming careers should really be grasping the opportunity to take part in these bigger meets when they are relatively close to home.

Anyway, all three of our club members had a good weekend. Andrew set five PB's on his way to a gold, three silvers and a bronze medal, and Matt showed good form, dropping below the minute for 100m long course freestyle for the first time.

Bethan was trying to add to her tally of national qualifying times, and narrowly missed number six in the 100m butterfly. She did, however, have two very strong swims in the 100m and 200m breaststroke, moving herself up to the top of the national rankings in the 100m and re-qualifying for the Welsh National Youth Squad for 2009-2010 with her 200m time. Well done to all three of you.

Following on from the Swim Swansea Long Course Open, the inaugural Pembrokeshire Whitsun Weekender meet was held over the weekend of May 23 and 24.

The following club members went along on at least one day over the weekend: Nicholas Allen, Harry Cooke, Dan Davies, Ffion Davies, Luke Dedoncker, Johnnie Delahunty, Hazel Fox, Kaitlyn Hicks, Andrew James, Myles Johnson, Jack Lear, Coral Lewis, Sam Lewis, Talia Merriman, Ben Rees, Safiya Rooney, Hannah Saunders, Henry Whittaker and Ashleigh Willars.

Once again Ffion had a very good weekend, winning everything she entered, and setting new PB's in all but one event. Super swimming Ffion!

Dan Davies won four gold medals and a whole heap more silver and bronze to add to his collection, and 50 per cent of his swims were in new personal best times.

Johnnie Delahunty, who trains in Haverfordwest, won three gold and three bronze medals, and fellow county swimmer Sam Lewis won two gold, two silver and a bronze. Hannah Saunders, who has also recently progressed to the county programme, won all of her events and recorded many good new PB's. Well done indeed.

Henry Whittaker won two gold and two silver medals, and fellow senior swimmer Jack Lear won two silvers. Former club stalwart, Coral Lewis, on her half-term break from Llandovery College, won the 15 and over girls 100m backstroke.

Back at the younger end of the spectrum, Kaitlyn Hicks picked up gold in the nine-10 yrs 200m IM, Harry Cooke won a bronze in the nine-11 yrs 200m freestyle and Myles Johnson swam to bronze in the nine-11 years 200IM. The fast improving Ashleigh Willars won a bronze in nine years 100m freestyle, and both Talia Merriman and Ben Rees won a whole heap of either bronze or silver medals. Great swimming by all.

Andrew James has been training very hard in Swansea whilst striving to achieve the national qualifying times to allow him to compete at the National Youth Championships in Sheffield later this summer. He returned to Pembrokeshire for the weekend and swam in no less than 12 events. He won eight of these and was just a just 0.82 seconds outside the time he needed in the 400m freestyle. Bad luck, but impressive swimming in any case.

Prizes were awarded during the competition for best boy and girl. We are pleased to report that Andrew won the honour for best boy and Ffion Davies was awarded the prize for best girl overall. Very well done to both of you.

Club awards were also made, and not surprisingly after so many very strong swims, Tenby won the Top Club award. Pembroke were second, Haverfordwest were third, Swansea Valley were fourth and Fishguard were fifth.

Your reporter was not in attendance in Haverfordwest on the day of the competition, but by all accounts it was a very well run gala, with loads of volunteer assistance and good co-operation from the leisure centre staff. Congratulations to Ann Adams and her team for making it all run so smoothly.

This time of year is always a little tricky for the older swimmers, quite a number of them are taking exams of one sort or another. Hence a couple of familiar names were missing from the results sheet.

Bethan Davie, however, did not make it to Haverfordwest, because she was having a competition-free weekend prior to travelling to Norway with the members of the Welsh National Youth Squad. The idea behind these trips being to introduce the squad swimmers to travel and international competition from an early age. They took part in the Swim Shop Cup open meet at the outdoor pool at Frognerpark in Oslo, and were fortunate enough to enjoy brilliant sunny weather all the time they were there.

This competition is one of the premier competitions in the Norwegian swimming calendar and is attended by a whole host of local swimmers together with a number of international competitors from across Scandinavia and beyond. Bethan and her Welsh teammates, swam in a variety of events over the three-day competition, and had a really great weekend both in and out of the pool.

On the final day, Bethan swam in her favourite 200m breaststroke event where she set an excellent PB on her way to finishing in second place behind the 2008 Olympic bronze medallist. Exciting stuff! In fact, Beth's new PB is the fifth fastest time ever by a 13-year-old in the UK, and places her well up in the rankings heading for the season defining National Age Group Championships which take place in late July. The girls with the fourth and fifth fastest times are also in her age group, so it is sure to be an exciting event once again.

The final competition we are reporting on this time is the West Wales Regional Development Meet, which was held at the new pool in Haverfordwest, last Saturday. This is a competition aimed at a standard of swimmer who did not qualify for the Welsh Age Group Championships a few weeks ago, and therefore focuses on those on the lower rungs of the development ladder.

At the time of writing, the team list and full results are not available, but junior team manager Sarah Hicks reports that it was nice to see some new competitors from the club taking part. This should be great motivation for the regular team squad with the new guys hot on your tails. Both girls junior and senior relay teams and boys junior teams won hard-earned medals; unfortunately, Tenby did not have enough older swimmers to enter a senior boys relay team. Talia Merriman, Carys Davies, Madison Vickery and Georgia Poole all won individual medals - fantastic girls. All swimmers can be proud of their efforts and PB's (some massive) on the day. Well done everybody.

Forthcoming Events

June 13: Amman Valley Sprint Meet, Llanelli. Good luck everyone who has entered. (Note warm-up at 8 am).

July 3 - 5: Cardiff Int. Open Meet. Entries Closed.

July 22 - 27: ASA National Age Group Championships, Sheffield. (Qualifiers only).

July 30 - August 2: Swim Wales Summer Nationals, WNP Swansea. Check the notice board for details, and enter if you have the qualifying times.

Club News

We start this section on a sour note. As some of you may know, the Swim Wales regional development officer recently held a two-day assistant development coaches course in Tenby. Despite 11 people from the club placing their names on the list to attend, only one person turned up on the day. This was extremely disappointing and embarrassing for the club, and sends out a very negative message about our structure, especially when we are currently trying to achieve Swim Wales Dragon Mark accreditation. It was fortunate, indeed, that the five people from Milford Haven who signed-up actually came along as planned.

It may seem that Tenby has a surfeit of coaching staff at the moment, and indeed those of us involved in the coaching enjoy what we do, but invariably most coaches only remain involved as long as they have their own children in the club. Thus the situation is inevitably in a permanent state of flux and we always need more help. Also, under the requirements of the Dragon Mark programme we have an obligation to train people to replace those who gradually leave. If you want your children to progress, and the club to continue to remain strong and produce more amazing young athletes, please don't treat the club as a crèche, get involved!

As we alluded to earlier in this report, changes are once again afoot with respect to the competitive swimming programme in Pembrokeshire. You will be pleased to learn this is in a positive direction for a change. At a recent meeting, the coaches of the five county clubs have agreed to restart the Pembrokeshire Junior League competition to give our younger swimmers some much-needed exposure to competitive swimming. This is great news and means that we will soon be enjoying some friendly rivalry with Pembroke, Haverfordwest, Milford and Fishguard once again.

The last Welsh Long Course event of the swimming year is coming up at the beginning of August, when the Welsh Summer Nationals are to be held at the National Pool in Swansea. Those of you with aspirations to qualify for the South West Wales Skills Squads should consider entering if you have the qualifying times.

To conclude, Pam has had a mishap with the latest polo shirts order form. Can you please fill your details in once again on the new sheet posted on the notice board. She promises that she will try not to drop this one behind the radiator!