4th World Deaf Swimming Championships
2015, Texas, San Antonio
Coach Report
Congratulations to the GB squad who participated in the Worlds Championships in Texas, San Antonio. This year 14 swimmers, 6 girls and 8 boys were selected in the team to represent Great Britain at the World Championships. A team with a mixture of young talent and experienced swimmers some competing for the first time. Myself as coach along with experienced team manager Mel Davis supported the team through a tough but exciting week.
The competition was hosted at the Northside Swim Centre, with a total of 140 athletes from 21 countries. The outstanding facilities featured two outdoor swimming pools one 50m competition pool and a separate 25m warm-down pool. The teams sat on poolside under small gazebos in 35 degree heat. In extremely hot conditions swimmers only had 2 days to acclimatize and prepare for the grueling 6 days of competition. With my background in sport science research I was aware of the risk of dehydration and the major affects it has on performance. So Mel and I took urine samples from the swimmers each day to closely monitor hydrations levels. Overall I was impressed; the swimmers took responsibility, and consumed enough fluids to ensure they performed their best despite the heat.
The competition featured advanced timing and visual starting systems with three different colours for all the deaf swimmers. I was impressed with the new starting system which had a long light on the edge of each block. This enabled each swimmer to hold their best stance position on the block without having to adjust their technique by looking to the side. I was also pleased that they gave the swimmers opportunities to practice with the start light during warmup to ensure that they were fully confident before their race.
As the competition started I noticed that the times were recorded by volunteers and that there were no qualified time keepers. This was disappointing to see at international standard competition as World/European records should only be ratified by qualified time keepers.
However despite this GB team achieved 31 individual finals over the six days and achieved
1 individual Gold, 1 individual Silver, 3 individual bronze and 1 bronze in relay:
Danielle Joyce (1Gold) 100BK
(1Silver) 50BK
(2 Bronze) 200BK, Mixed FC Relay
(5th) 50Fc, 200IM
(6th) 50Fly
(8th) 100 FC
Jack McComish (3Bronze) 400IM, 400FC, Mixed FC Relay,
(4th) 100 FC
(5th) 200 FC, 200IM, 50Br
Emily Noden (1Bronze) Mixed FC Relay,
(6th) 50Bk
(7th) 200FC, 400Fc
(8th) 800FC, 50FC
Tom Baxter (1Bronze) Mixed FC Relay
Lucy Walkup (4th) 200 BR
(7th) 100 BR
(8th) 50BR, 100Fly
Nathan Young (8th) 200 BK
Oliver Kenny (6th) 200 Bk, 200Fly
(7th) 200 BR
Jasmine Seamarks (6th) 100BK
(7th) 200BK, 400 IM
Polly Saines (7th) 200Fly
Kieran Holdbrook (8th) 1500Fc
Luke Nisted just missing out in the final coming 9th place in the 200 BK. Also Matthew Oaten, Ciara Tappenden and James Webster swam their best on and improved PB times. Overall team set an amazing 52 personal best times, and a total on 44 records combined.
Danielle Joyce showed that she can compete with the best in the world by smashing the World Deaf Record in 100BK swimming 1.06.35. Danielle also set a new world record in the heats of the 50 metres event in 30.82 before narrowly missing out in the final with 30.75 where both she and the gold Medalist dipped below the world record set.
Overall the team broke 2 World records and a total of 9 GB individual, 3 GB relay and 1 GB Youth Record. There were two new mixed relays with team of 2 female and 2 male swimmers. The team set 2 new British records in mixed freestyle and medley relays. Also a new British record in the female FC relay was achieved shaving 0.08 seconds off the previous record, along with 9 British Age Group Records set by Kieran Holdbrook, Nathan Young, Jasmine Seamarks and Polly Saines. One of the particular highlights of the week was the one age group record set in the 100Bk by Jasmine Seamarks swimming a fantastic 1.11.73 in the finals.
There were also 5 Welsh records by Emily Noden, 1 English record by Oliver Kenny, while Jack McComish & Danielle Joyce posted an amazing 6 Scottish records.
Overall team GB did excellent and achieved PBs 52 times in both heats and finals. In the medals table Great Britain came 7th place out of 21 countries with a total of 6 medals. We achieved slightly less medals than the World Championships 4 years in Portugal. However I am delighted to report that the team qualified in 12 more finals compared to Portugal when we qualified in 19 final. I was proud to see a British swimmer in nearly every final, this shows we have raised the bar as a team and younger swimmers are improving towards a successful future. Congratulations to the whole team who supported each other throughout a tough week and I look forward to working towards the Deaflympics in 2017.
Sam Chamberlain
Coach Report
Congratulations to the GB squad who participated in the Worlds Championships in Texas, San Antonio. This year 14 swimmers, 6 girls and 8 boys were selected in the team to represent Great Britain at the World Championships. A team with a mixture of young talent and experienced swimmers some competing for the first time. Myself as coach along with experienced team manager Mel Davis supported the team through a tough but exciting week.
The competition was hosted at the Northside Swim Centre, with a total of 140 athletes from 21 countries. The outstanding facilities featured two outdoor swimming pools one 50m competition pool and a separate 25m warm-down pool. The teams sat on poolside under small gazebos in 35 degree heat. In extremely hot conditions swimmers only had 2 days to acclimatize and prepare for the grueling 6 days of competition. With my background in sport science research I was aware of the risk of dehydration and the major affects it has on performance. So Mel and I took urine samples from the swimmers each day to closely monitor hydrations levels. Overall I was impressed; the swimmers took responsibility, and consumed enough fluids to ensure they performed their best despite the heat.
The competition featured advanced timing and visual starting systems with three different colours for all the deaf swimmers. I was impressed with the new starting system which had a long light on the edge of each block. This enabled each swimmer to hold their best stance position on the block without having to adjust their technique by looking to the side. I was also pleased that they gave the swimmers opportunities to practice with the start light during warmup to ensure that they were fully confident before their race.
As the competition started I noticed that the times were recorded by volunteers and that there were no qualified time keepers. This was disappointing to see at international standard competition as World/European records should only be ratified by qualified time keepers.
However despite this GB team achieved 31 individual finals over the six days and achieved
1 individual Gold, 1 individual Silver, 3 individual bronze and 1 bronze in relay:
Danielle Joyce (1Gold) 100BK
(1Silver) 50BK
(2 Bronze) 200BK, Mixed FC Relay
(5th) 50Fc, 200IM
(6th) 50Fly
(8th) 100 FC
Jack McComish (3Bronze) 400IM, 400FC, Mixed FC Relay,
(4th) 100 FC
(5th) 200 FC, 200IM, 50Br
Emily Noden (1Bronze) Mixed FC Relay,
(6th) 50Bk
(7th) 200FC, 400Fc
(8th) 800FC, 50FC
Tom Baxter (1Bronze) Mixed FC Relay
Lucy Walkup (4th) 200 BR
(7th) 100 BR
(8th) 50BR, 100Fly
Nathan Young (8th) 200 BK
Oliver Kenny (6th) 200 Bk, 200Fly
(7th) 200 BR
Jasmine Seamarks (6th) 100BK
(7th) 200BK, 400 IM
Polly Saines (7th) 200Fly
Kieran Holdbrook (8th) 1500Fc
Luke Nisted just missing out in the final coming 9th place in the 200 BK. Also Matthew Oaten, Ciara Tappenden and James Webster swam their best on and improved PB times. Overall team set an amazing 52 personal best times, and a total on 44 records combined.
Danielle Joyce showed that she can compete with the best in the world by smashing the World Deaf Record in 100BK swimming 1.06.35. Danielle also set a new world record in the heats of the 50 metres event in 30.82 before narrowly missing out in the final with 30.75 where both she and the gold Medalist dipped below the world record set.
Overall the team broke 2 World records and a total of 9 GB individual, 3 GB relay and 1 GB Youth Record. There were two new mixed relays with team of 2 female and 2 male swimmers. The team set 2 new British records in mixed freestyle and medley relays. Also a new British record in the female FC relay was achieved shaving 0.08 seconds off the previous record, along with 9 British Age Group Records set by Kieran Holdbrook, Nathan Young, Jasmine Seamarks and Polly Saines. One of the particular highlights of the week was the one age group record set in the 100Bk by Jasmine Seamarks swimming a fantastic 1.11.73 in the finals.
There were also 5 Welsh records by Emily Noden, 1 English record by Oliver Kenny, while Jack McComish & Danielle Joyce posted an amazing 6 Scottish records.
Overall team GB did excellent and achieved PBs 52 times in both heats and finals. In the medals table Great Britain came 7th place out of 21 countries with a total of 6 medals. We achieved slightly less medals than the World Championships 4 years in Portugal. However I am delighted to report that the team qualified in 12 more finals compared to Portugal when we qualified in 19 final. I was proud to see a British swimmer in nearly every final, this shows we have raised the bar as a team and younger swimmers are improving towards a successful future. Congratulations to the whole team who supported each other throughout a tough week and I look forward to working towards the Deaflympics in 2017.
Sam Chamberlain