London Swimming Disability Championship

The second London Swimming Disability Championship was held last Sunday (12^th October) at Downham Health Centre in Lewisham.  

Swimmers from across London and the East region took part in the Championship from development level, through to elite. 

Many young swimmers from across the capital were attracted to the Championship and for some it was their first disability competition. This gave Michelle Weltman, the London Swimming Disability Squad Coach an opportunity to identify talented swimmers. Michelle was delighted with the turn out and is looking forward to supporting and working with some of the athletes she has identified.

Many of the swimmers achieved personal best times and there was an overall improvement on winning times.  

London Swimming regularly holds a Youth Council, where young people involved in aquatics can feedback to the organisation their thoughts and recommendations for changes they would like to make to their sport. The Disability Championship took on board some of the recommendations from the Youth Council. One suggestion made was to have race commentary similar to that of a football match. Four times Paralympian Dervis Konuralp was the person charged with this task. Dervis did a fantastic job of providing the supporters and swimmers with race updates and history of the swimmers. Dervis was also recognised by London Swimming for his Paralympic success, and was presented with a gift from the London Swimming President Richard Whitehead. Dervis has been to four Paralympics, won two Paralympic medals and 35 international medals. 

London Swimming’s Aquatic Development Coordinator, Jo Calvino attended the event to research into the needs from both athletes & parents to improve the knowledge & understanding in disability swimming, by producing a short questionnaire to be completed during the event. This has provided information to highlight the access and information needs London Swimming needs to address.   

The event was a very special event for London Swimming Board Member Kay Grimshaw. Kay has been selected as the ASA President for the next 12 months and the London Disability Swimming Championship was Kay’s first official event as the ASA President.  London Swimming wishes Kay the very best of luck for the coming year and is proud to highlight that Kay is only the 4^th women to hold the prestigious title in ASA history.   

London Swimming would like to thank everyone that helped to make the event the success it was.

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