Summer Sizzler Lives up to its Name!

Derby Excel hosted our last meet of the season last weekend, the Summer Sizzler, a long course level 3 meet featuring a skins event at the end of the morning session each day. 

It was a brilliant event, which ran smoothly throughout. Some of our Elite squads were there, tuning their preparations ahead of Nationals later in the month, but it was mainly for our younger swimmers to show what they could do in their end of season swims. There were many excellent swims, with the swimmers doing their coaches proud.

The skins event was a lot of fun, with the top 10 swimmers from the 14 and under and 15/over 200m individual medley events qualifying. There were cash prizes on offer to the winners, well done to you all. 

Thanks to the Open meet team of Kirsty Billinge, Rachel Male, Babs Ingram and Pippa Hibbs for putting on such a brilliant event. 

Thank you to all the volunteers, team managers, officials and coaches. We couldn't have done it without you. 

We've had lots of positive feedback, one coach even saying it was the best level 3 meet he'd ever attended! 

Some other feedback we've received: 

I would just like to say thank you very much for hosting such a great event and to the team for helping me get my practical signed off as an official. My daughters also loved it from a swimmer's perspective and the Derby Excel volunteer team as a whole were just lovely. We'll look forward to the next one we are able to attend!

I wanted to extend a massive thank you to everyone at Derby Excel. My son and his friend were representing their club on their own. I can't express enough gratitude to the team on poolside; they took great care of the boys, ensuring they were always in the right places at the right times for their events, and making sure they ate and drank. The open meet itself was incredibly well organised and ran smoothly. Once again, thank you for making the boys feel so welcome. They had a fantastic time and even came away with some medals! We look forward to attending future open meets you host.

I would just like to say thank you for having us at such a welcoming and efficient gala this weekend. Our swimmers have had an amazing weekend, lots of great swims and fun had by all. One thing noted by our swimmers was the lovely medals! 

We'd also like to wish Paul Hopkinson well as he recovers from surgery. Paul is the current DASA President,  a Derby Excel committee member, Team manager trainer, one of our referees and one of our welfare officers, and a very important cog in the DX wheel! Get well soon Paul.