The Festival was held over 3 days at the Welsh National pool Swansea on the 7th – 8th and 9th of August, 9 Holywell swimmers competed over the weekend.
The Team : Milly Jones, Alexandra Owen-Hatfield, Jean-Luc Lovell-Pascal, Rhys Roberts, Katie Allen, Luke Hall, Ella Shaw, Emily Williams and Hannah Simpson.
Day 1: (Saturday 7th August) Holywell of to a flyer, Milly PBs in the 200m IM and Alexandra places 1st in the 100m Fly and then places 1st with a fantastic swim in the 400 Free. Katie places 7th with a PB in the 200m Backstroke, Jean-Luc comes 7th in the 400m Free and takes 2nd place with a solid swim in the 100m Fly. Next up was the 50m Free, in their age groups Rhys takes 6th, Jean-Luc 4th, Milly 4th, Hannah swims a strong 50m taking 3rd, Emily 8th. Emily followed this up with a great swim in the 200 Backstroke taking 5th. The last session of the day started with Luke swimming a PB in the 50m Breaststroke, Jean-Luc taking 2nd with another PB, Emily 7th and Milly PBs taking 4th spot. Ella finished the day swimming the 400m Free.
Summary of Day 1: Great start to the Festival with the team taking two 1st places, two 2nd places and one 3rd place and swimming 11 PBs
Day 2: (Sunday 8th August) The team continued their great start Milly swims has a 6 second PB in the 100m Backstroke followed by Alexandra who take her second 1st place in the 400m Individual Medley. in the second session of the day Jean Luc swims the 200m Breaststroke with a 4 seconds PB and takes 1st place in 2:36.50. Next was the 50m Fly, in their age groups Jean Luc take another 1st with Rhys swimming a strong 50m taking 3rd, Milly Jones shows off her diving prowess and takes 7th, Katie and Hannah both have strong swims and place 6th & 7th respectively. The last session of day two Hannah has a strong swim in her age group, she PBs and places 5th in 2:16.81, Ella and Emily swim in the same heat which was a great race to watch, Emily places 5th and PBs in 2:17.04 and Ella 6th in 2:17.21. Hannah and Emily have a quick turn around to swim the 100m Backstroke, in their age groups both girls finish 5th and both PB, a great way to finish day 2.
Summary of Day 2: The team were supporting each other in every race and the swims were getting faster, two more 1st places, a 3rd place and 13 more PBs. Alexandra and Milly were lucky enough to meet the 3 Welsh swimmers who swam at the Tokyo 2021 Games, Harriet Jones (100m Fly), ( Aly Thomas 200m Fly 7th), (Daniel Jervis, Gold in the mens 4x200m relay and 5th in the 1500m FC)
Day 3: (Monday 9th August) The Final day, Again Emily and Alexandra start the day of well both setting PBs in the 100m Free Emily improving her long course time by 5 seconds and Alexandra improving on an old long course time by 10 seconds. Emily takes 5th in the 100 Breaststroke with another 5 seconds PB, Alexandra swims a hard 200m Fly and takes a well deserved 1st. Session 2, Rhys PBs in the 100m Free, at the start of Katie’s 100m free for some reason starter waits for an eternity before starting the race, it caused a few of the girls to start late Katie being one, but it didn’t stop her chasing down the other competitors and finishing with a well earned PB. Luke continued to take huge chunks out of his PB times, taking 35 seconds off his Long course time in the 100m Breaststroke, Jean-Luc PBs and takes 2nd narrowly missed out on another 1st in the 100m Breaststroke being held into second place by 3/10 of a second (so close, but great race to watch). The final Session of the final day, the 100m Free, Hannah takes 4th and PBs, Emily swims well and comes in 0.5 of her PB time, Rhys PBs and takes 9th in the 200 IM and Jean Luc finishes the Festival of swimming off with a great swim in the 200m IM placing 4th with a 7.5 seconds PB a great way to finish the meet.
Jean-Luc Lovell-Pascal, Rhys Roberts.
Summary of Day 3: A busy final day saw the team finish strong, one 1st, one 2nd and 10 more PBs, the support was fantastic right up to the last race.
Meet Summary: It was nice to have the team back in competitive water swimming against some of the best swimmers in Wales, Its been a long wait. All our swimmers were brilliant and represented Holywell swimming club amazingly well with great team spirit and support, as a head coach i couldn’t be more proud of them, the final placings count was 5 x 1st places, 3 x 2nd places, 2 x 3rd places and an impressive 34 PBs.
Emily and Alexandra were lucky enough to meet 3 of the the 6 Welsh swimmers who competed for Team GB at the Tokyo Olympics this year Harriet Jones, Alys Thomas and Daniel Jervis.
The next event at the National Pool will hopefully be the Welsh Winters which will be a 50m long course qualifying meet for the 2022 Commonwealth Games 28th July to August 8th 2022 in Birmingham.
