Author Archives: Admin

Star Swimmer Filip,

Shirley Pool swimmer Filip Fraczek-Krygier was the Dolphins star of the County Championships, crowned Hampshire Champion in five events.

His outstanding times earned him TOP Twentyranking in England Filip dominated the freestyle events producing his best performance in the 200m FS final. Leading from the front Filip blew the opposition away swimming in the first 100m in 1.15.70. In an exciting race and spurred on by teams mates and the crowd, Filip held off the challenge from Guernsey swimmer, Luke Winstanley to secure the victory swimming the last 50m’s 4 seconds quicker than the heats.

His time ranks Filip in the top 20 in the Country in his age group. Filip also secured Regional Qualifying Times with his 200m FS, 200m BK and 200m IM (3.02.83) times.

Filip began learning to swim at Shirley in 2007, aged 4, quickly learning the strokes and showed promise as he dominated his first Club Championships. Since joining the Elite Top Squad with coach Chris White, Filip has excelled.

Filip’s Championship times: 400m FS 5.43.16, 200m FS 2.34.86, 50m FS 32.76, 200m BK 2.57.45 and 50m BF 38.16.

Southampton Dolphins Swimming Club entered the Hampshire County Championships in March for the third time since the Club re registered as an ASA Affiliated Team under the leadership of coach Chris White.

The squad showed great improvement on the previous two years. The Dolphins had a record number of entries 26 swimmers qualified in 145 individual events with 10 swimmers achieving full BAGCAT’s in the age group category (9-14yrs).

The Dolphins also made 9 individual finals and both the boys and girls 9-12 year age group relay teams made the finals of the freestyle and medley events.
Head Coach Chris White said:

“I’m delighted with the swimmers performances they have all done so well, all my swimmers have achieved personal bests and the clubs results continue to improve year on year. We have two swimmers who have achieved regional BAGCAT’s and many swimmers close to regional times which has exceeded my expectations after only three years of competing. Credit must go to the swimmers who have put the effort in during training and to parents who bring them.”

Eva Mayer, Star Swimmer

Hi, my name is Eva. I was nine years, eight weeks and two days old when I dived into my local pool to start my 12-week charity Channel Swim on September 10th 2012.

The challenge is to swim the distance of the English Channel (22 miles) over 12 weeks. I will need to swim 1,416 lengths in total to achieve this, that’s nearly 120 lengths every single week for three months.

I’ve been looking forward to this all summer because I LOVE swimming, because I would like to swim the real English Channel one day (as long as there aren’t too many jelly fish!), and because I want to raise as much money as possible for the Aspire charity to help improve the lives of people with spinal injuries.

As well as swimming, I also like tap dancing, sailing, writing stories, all kinds of art, strawberries, peaches, milkshakes, and giggling uncontrollably. My favourite colours are red and rainbow.

I first started splashing about in the water regularly when I was a baby. By the time I was a toddler I could swim underwater, Mum says there was no stopping me after that. It took a few years of lessons to master all four of the swimming strokes: front crawl, backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly.

Just after my sixth birthday I swam my first continuous mile. A few months later I swam 2000 metres (a mile and a half). Last year I started preparing for competition swimming and now train at least three or four times a week. I swim for my school team too. I have a good coach and lots of energy but sometimes he can wear me out! Afterwards my favourite thing to do is just stand under the shower with the warm water pouring over my head for quite a long time!

One of my swimming heroes is Rebecca Adlington. Mum took me to the London Olympics this year to watch the swimming finals. When I walked into the Aquatics Centre I was speechless. The fifty-metre pool looked HUGE. The lights were so bright. There were flags and cameras everywhere and thousands of people sitting in rows of seats that stretched back and back, right up to the ceiling.

When the swimmers were ready to dive in and the microphone man said: “On your marks…” I could imagine just how they felt – excited and nervous, wanting it to be the best swim ever. Once they were in the water the crowds SCREAMED so loud it hurt my ears. I saw Michael Phelps become the most decorated Olympian ever. When it was all over it was dark outside. Mum’s voice and mine sounded croaky from cheering so much.

One day, I would like to swim in the Olympics. Whatever happens, I will never stop swimming because I love it so much. The water is like my second home. As soon as I dive in I smile, I feel happy and free, like I’m really ME.

Thanks for taking the time to visit my Aspire Channel Swim page. You can see my regular updates at my JustGiving page www.justgiving.com/evaswim

You can donate quickly and safely through JustGiving by clicking the ‘donate’ button.

So please, please, please, dig deep and donate now. Thanks a lot! Eva x