What an amazing season the swimmers of Tenby Dolphins are having. We have previously reported that two of our club members have reached the dizzy heights of qualifying for the British National Age Group and Youth Swimming Championships, which will be held in Sheffield in late July/August. Now we are absolutely delighted to report that our 2007 Boys Club captain, Andrew James, has also added his name to the list! Competition Results Over the weekend of June 16-17, a special Short Course (25m) Spring Qualifier meet was held at the Wales National Pool in Swansea. This meeting was designed to give Welsh swimmers a final opportunity to achieve the qualification times necessary to compete in the British National Age Group Championships, and was also a chance for club swimmers to achieve the times necessary to compete in the Welsh Summer Nationals which will be held in Swansea in August. As this was rather a specialist event, only a small group of club members entered, but how well they swam! Andrew James competed in several events over the weekend and was clearly on top of his game. On his way to achieving the national qualifying time (NQT) in the 200m Breaststroke, Andrew swam an impressive controlled race in 2' 31.00, which was 0.22 seconds inside the required time. Top performance Andrew! Lewys Canton and Bethan Davie, who had previously recorded NQT's for this year's Nationals, were also in Swansea on Sunday to see if they could qualify for additional events. They certainly did not disappoint! Lewys swam a storming race in the 100m Freestyle, to record a time of 56.89 seconds. This was 0.18 seconds inside the required NQT and another significant PB. Fantastic result! Lewys will now be competing in both the 100m and 200m events in Sheffield. In the 200m Breaststroke, Bethan was looking to add to her earlier 100m Breaststroke qualification. Swimming from the front in a relatively slow heat, she finished in 3' 00.35 which was nearly four seconds under the required NQT, and a 12-second improvement on her entry time. Very well done Beth! Our Tenby head coach John Amos was in attendance to witness the exploits of his young charges, and was naturally thrilled with the outcome. A big thanks to John from the families of the three swimmers involved for the tremendous efforts he has made to accelerate the development of these young athletes over the past months. All the hard work has obviously paid off, and we are all naturally delighted with the outcome and hope it inspires our younger club members to aim for the same peaks of performance. Amid all the excitement, we must also mention that Thomas Baker was in Swansea at the weekend and we are pleased to report that he had a good competition, gained valuable experience and set several good new PB's. Well done Thomas, your rate of improvement is clearly accelerating. The weekend prior to the event in Swansea, another small group of Tenby swimmers headed off to Llanelli for the Amman Valley Sprint Meet 2007. Carl and Gemma Amos took part, and each won a bronze medal and set two new PB's. Holly Watkin- Rees had a very successful day, winning three golds and two silvers. Well done to the three of you. Forthcoming Events June 23: Dyfed Junior League Round 2, Tenby. Check the notice board for selection. July 1: Dyfed Junior League Final, Llanelli. Please make every effort to attend if selected. Bus provided. Remember club kit for everyone please. July 7: County Junior Triangular Gala, Pembroke (Pembs. v Ceredigion v Carmarthenshire). July 14: Training session with Zoe Baker. July 15: Junior Shield, Pembroke. July 23-26: ASA Age Group National Championships, Sheffield. July 27 - August 1: ASA Youth National Championships, Sheffield. August 2-5: Welsh Summer Nationals, WNP, Swansea. This is the last chance to post a good time and get yourself up the rankings before the Welsh squads for 2007/2008 are announced. Check to see if you qualify and go for it! As always, keep checking the notice board regularly for more details, and always ask for advice if you are not sure what to enter. We have several club junior team galas coming up. All those selected, please remember to wear club hats and kit. Club News We mentioned in our last article that we had some exciting news about a planned visit of a top swimming star to the club. Well we can now reveal that on July 14 former UK and now New Zealand international swimmer Zoe Baker will be visiting us to run a swim clinic. For those of you who are unfamiliar with her name, Zoe is a 50m breaststroke specialist and is four times World record holder and Commonwealth champion. Wow! All you breaststrokers take note! For more information regarding Zoe's career and achievements you can visit her website http://www.zoebaker.co.nz">www.zoebaker.co.nz. It is sure to be a fun day and as with previous events such as this we will be allocating approximately 20 places to each of the Senior and Junior squads. The lucky participants will be drawn at random, so if you want to take part, please put your name down as soon as the list goes up on the notice board.

S.D.