All icy roads led to Coral Leisure on Sunday 11th December for our Winter gala. Swimming Clubs that attended were Dungannon Swimming Club, Larne ASC, Enniskillen Lakelanders, Swilly Seals, Ballyshannon Marlins, East Cavan Swim Club, Drogheda Swimming Club, Newry Swimming Club and Riversdale Otters.
The gala ran off in two sessions, with the older swimmers in the morning and the younger in the afternoon.
Our special guest was Olympian Andrew Bree who is a double Olympian (2000 and 2008) and an Irish National swimming broadcaster. He also holds Irish national records for swimming. We handed him a mic and he acted as commentator for the gala which added a bit of excitement for the swimmers. Let’s just say he was fantastic in this role and we are very grateful to him for giving up his time on Sunday.
The gala ran off very smoothly with lots of exciting and close races. We had lots of medal success and personal best times achieved. The relays at the start and end of the gala proved to be a great hit
with lots of rivalry between the various clubs involved. Our swimmers performed well, they should be very proud of themselves. We hope the swimmers who had to pull out at the last minute due to
illness are on the road to recovery.
We could not run this gala without the massive amount of help we received from our entire swimming community from Head Coach Pearse McGuigan who made it happen along with the Committee members Louise, Kim, Aoife, Sylvia and Claire, our other coaches, to the parents who came in the evening before to set up the shop and get the deck ready and pool set up, you know who you are, thank you so much. To our timekeepers, shop workers, team managers, runners, to the ladies on the desk, we couldn’t have done it without all this help. To those who helped afterwards putting the pool back to normal, thank you.