Shropshire Star

Celebration time for swimmers at county awards night

The Shropshire Amateur Swimming Association celebrated a season to remember at their annual awards night.

Published

Over 130 people attended the event, which took place at Shrewsbury Town’s Sovereign Suite, to salute the sterling efforts of swimmers from the county’s 11 competitive clubs at the Shropshire Championships.

The night also provided an opportunity to celebrate the performance of the county team who won promotion to Division One at the National Inter-County Team Championships for the first time in 44 years of trying.

The individual championships took place at Wolverhampton Swimming Baths and this year witnessed exceptional performances by some of the county’s most dedicated and talented young sports stars. There was also increased participation by a number of clubs including Oswestry, Newport and Market Drayton.

Shropshire also continues to lead the way on the national scene in terms of being disability inclusive.

This year, Tom Piggott (Oswestry Otters), achieved a time fast enough to qualify and compete in the finals against his non-para counterparts. Not content with just competing, he also found time to officiate too!

Stu Highfield, president of West Midlands Swimming, and Louise Barnes, president of Shropshire ASA, were on hand to dish out awards to the top three swimmers from each age group

With many of the National Inter-County swimmers away training with their squads, seven team members managed to attend, including Katie Hale (Ellesmere College Titans) who was the top female points scorer on the team with 37.5, narrowly missing out on top place to GB’s Charlie Hutchison.