"DX FACTOR" in Swansea 2011 - Day 1

DX have 32 swimmers in action this weekend in Swansea.

Last year was a huge success and this year has started the same!

We travelled down yesterday with the team in high spirits, and began swimming this morning.

Swimmers were looking to progress to the finals in the afternoon and to post some fast times.

Most swimmers swam personal best times this morning, and the aim was to move up on the positions they qualified in for the finals and improve on personal best times. DX had swimmers in every final and in a lot of the finals 3 or 4 swimmers, with a lot of the older swimmers swimming "off stroke" trying something different to improve their all around capabilities.

DX again were the loudest supporters in the pool with horns and clappers and of course their big voices, and all swimmers got the same support.

Ben Goodall swam a National Qualifying swim in his 200m Breaststoke this morning, a stroke he has worked hard on in recent months. He then followed this up within the hour with a class swim and another National Qualifying time in the 200m Fly, which he then went onto win the Gold medal in style in the final and lower his time again.

Abbie Wood also showed maturity beyond her years when she battled out what has to be one of the races of the meet so far to take Silver in the 200m Freestyle in a National Qualfying time of 2.16.67 knocking 6.18 seconds off her personal best. She then went on to win the Gold medal in the 100m Fly in a National Qualifying time.

Big shout outs go to:

Matt Cross - Final of the 100m Freestyle Pb in a time of 1.11.07, after a very confusing time keeper and with the support of DX behind him, Matt a swam a pb in heats and finals to come 4th place in the final being one of the youngest swimmers in the 10 and 11 year final.

Jamie Ingram - 100m Free and 200m Fly finals - Jamie stepped up and did exactly what was asked of him 2 Pb's in 2 finals and a Bronze medal in the 200m Fly to add to the Bronze medal he won in the 50m Fly.

Edward Boryisak - Final of the 100m Free again swimming a personal best in the heats and final. He will now look forward to his favoured events.

Connor Smith - Just shy of his national time showed experience to come back after injury and win the 100m Free, after also winning a medal in the 50m Fly.

Kev Wallbank - Silver medal in the 200m Fly and Bronze in the 100m Free.

James Latham - Great personal best and Gold medal in the 200m Breaststroke.

Mischa Menzies - Final in the 100m Free, Medal in the 50m Flym will also look to his more favoured events later in the weekend.

Kane Haggett - Silver in the 50m Fly and 100m Free

Chris Steeples - made finals in good form in the 100m Free, and swam a "very enjoyable" 50m Fly

Matt Smithurst - Bronze Medal 50m Fly, will now be warmed up for his events later in the weekend

Tyler-Ann Black - 200m Free, 100m Fly finals

Hannah Jones - Gold 100m Fly, Final 2.14 200m Freestyle

Sarah Vasey - Final 200m Free in a great personal best time and final in the 100m Fly

Jess Cross - In the heats 2 great pb's in the 200m Free and Back and made 2 finals

Evie Keane - Great 200m Free Silver Medal

Molly Renshaw - 2.11 200m Free Bronze medal

Louise Ratcliffe - Just shy of her personal best made the 200m Free final

Oli Davidson - Bronze Medal 200m Breast

Lucy Wood - Great personal best and won the 200m Backstroke by 15m

Chloe Johnson - 2 Gutsy 200m Backstroke swims, just missing the national qualifying time, her attack on the 200m, shows great for the 100m later in the meet.

Kathryn Roworth - Showed maturity and drive to get a 2 second personal best time and get within a second of the national time, also looking great for the 100m later.

Eve Farnsworth - Showed great second 100m ability as always to come through in the 200m Backstroke Silver medal.

Emily Allsopp - Silver medal 200m Backstroke

Hannah Sullivan - Just off her best but battled well in the 200m Backstroke, looking to sharpen up for the sprint events later in the week.

Jodie Hawksworth - In her not so favoured 800m Free and 200m Back setting personal best times.

Emma Longden - Bronze Medal in 50m Fly and final in 100m Fly

Leah Hollingsworth - Qualified for final of 100m Fly and personal best in the 100m Fly and 200m Free, will now look to continue this form in her Breaststroke and medley events later in the weekend.

Hannah Kingdon - After a dissapointing DX meet has shown that the hard work does pay off and swam to great personal best times in the 50m Fly and with one of the strongest leg kicks seen in the 200m Free.

Fearn Middleton - Straight off her midland qualifying swims last weekend Fearn put in some confident 50m pool race practice and swam to great personal best times in the 200m Free and Back.

Rob Ainley - Good first swim to get him into the meet, will now look to gain personal best times in his others events.

This meet is one of the first times at a "stay away" meet that these swimmers have experienced, all the newcomers are dealing with it with maturity and professionalism and all swimmers have mixed in well...and are having a whale of a time!

DX have won 22 medals on Day 1 and have the target of surpassing the medal count for last year which reads 72 medals; 25 Gold; 29 Silver and 18 Bronze.

An excellent first day swimmers, continue the great work!

I will try and update the blog as soon as I can I know the results are not working!