Stoke Mandeville Stadium Swim School Mini Gala
On Saturday 20th July we hosted one of our mini galas for the Stoke Mandeville Stadium Swim School. We were thrilled to have 5 teams of 6 swimmers taking part in the event, which made for a fun-filled day of putting those swimming skills to the test.
This was to be Laura’s first swimming gala as Aquatic Commercial Lead although she has had many years of experience including competing!
We opened with a ‘just for fun’ Individual Medley (IM) for three of our Stage 9 boys who wanted to put into practice what they have been learning in their Stage and Academy lessons.
This was followed by the traditional opener of the stage 10 IM, an all-female affair! It was lovely to see the girls racing hard and some beautifully executed competitive turns on display which hopefully helped to inspire the other stages.
For this gala, we decided to award points to the first, second and third place finalists, (3,2 and 1 respectively) and then combine the scores within the teams to bring more of a ‘team spirit’ to the event. This resulted in all of our swimmers remaining to the end to hear which teams were our gold, silver and bronze medallists.
In addition to the placing and attendance certificates we also awarded Sportsmanship and Technique awards as a way of encouraging and drawing attention to excellent practice. There was a lot of positive feedback from the spectators about these additions.
While the scores were being calculated all swimmers in the teams were invited to join a team relay race - this really got the crowd going too! It felt like the perfect way to end the racing events. All that was left was to read the incredibly close scores (only 4 points separating 5th to 3rd place) and award the medals to our top 3 teams.
If you have a little one who would love to be part of our Swim School and take part in future galas like this one, visit our swimming lessons page to find out more or speak to a member of the team on your next visit.