Barry Beavers Disabled Swimming Club making waves (From Barry And District News)

Barry Beavers Disabled Swimming Club making waves

10:00am Friday 8th March 2013 in Sport

THE Barry Beavers Disabled Swimming Club has had a very successful and productive 2012.

They started off the year very well with their own gala in March where ten other clubs from across Wales joined them at Barry Leisure Centre.

The hosts won two gold medals and a silver.

The club went on to compete in other galas across Wales and, in total, won five gold, eight silver and ten bronze medals.

Barry also came third in the league swim. This is a team of three swimmers visiting all the other clubs within the region to race each other.

Then it was on to the national gala in Pontypool in September where they won five gold and four silver medals.

Club spokesman Andrea Lalande said: “We are so proud of all our swimmers as they always do their best whenever they represent the club in galas and league swims. Our fantastic gala swimmers could not achieve these wonderful results without the commitment and dedication shown to them by Pat Finch who has been the team coach for 25 years. We could not do it without her and would not want to.”

Other fantastic events during the year were when many members were nominated for Vale Sport Personality of the Year awards.

Angela Price won Senior Volunteer of the Year and Chris Economides was runnerup.

Lucas Dwyer was runnerup in Junior Volunteer of the Year. Tracey Marchment was runner-up Disabled Sports Person of the Year. The gala team were runners-up in Team of the Year.

One of the members, Nicholas Cushen, was nominated and chosen to be part of the Olympic Torch relay.

Another member, Chris Economides, who is also one of our swimming instructors, took on a triathlon. This involved swimming 3km, running a half marathon and cycling 40km and helped raise £1,425 essential funds to keep the club going.

Our awards for this year were: Ann Haslam Star Cup – Ffion Jones for best improved female simmer; Richard Field Cup – Bryan Decastro for most improved male swimmer and Gordon Harris Plaque – Catherine Jones for outstanding volunteer.

The club meets every Saturday at Barry Leisure Centre from 3.45pm to 4.45pm. We are open to swimmers who have a disability of any type and have adult and child members. Also we are desperate for volunteer helpers.

These are people who are willing to give an hour of their w e e k - end to a s s i s t disabled s w i m - mers to get the most out of their session.

F u l l training is given, come to talk to us.

Thursday, March 7, 2013 barryanddistrictnews.co.uk Sport • 35