Kingfishers SC Scarborough – Ridings Winners 2024

On Sunday we were presented with our Ridings Trophy and gold medals for winning the Ridings league this year – the first time in Kingfisher’s history – what an amazing team effort it has been this year, thank you so much to everyone who has competed this year for us, all 42 of you.

I know every single one of you gave every race your all as individuals (often achieving some of your fastest swims) – we won the trophy this year through pulling together as a team, aiming to be the best we could be on the day together, whether that was making a huge effort to get there last minute to replace another team mate who could no longer make it, learning new skills such as step over take overs to help make us faster, or keeping plans clear so you were all available – we did it for each other and for our team and I couldn’t be more proud of, and grateful,for every single one of you.

Congratulations to Thirsk White Horse and Bridlington who came 2nd and 3rd and thanks for some strong competition from every team who took part and for all who helped organise these events – officials, the SADSA Executive, Everyone Active management and all the parents and other club volunteers, including many of our own, who gave up their time to ensure these galas happened and ran smoothly.

A huge thank you to our brilliant volunteer coaching team for being instrumental in helping us achieve these results as a Club and for giving up their time to be poolside (or in some cases, swim!) to support at every Ridings gala.

The Ridings is a Scarborough and District Swimming Association (SADSA) league of local grassroots swimming clubs coming together to compete and gain racing experience, and includes the organisation of Friendly League galas which we also competed in this year – thanks so much to all of you who swam, helped, organised and took part in those, we had some good successes and wins in those galas too. SADSA is a great organisation to be a part of, pulling together to make ourselves stronger and give ourselves a voice in a county of already very strong swimming clubs.

On Sunday many of our swimmers (a record breaking 49 of you for this event) took part in the annual SADSA Championships at our pool – several of our swimmers from across our Performance and Development squads were trying new events, or using the meet to add some good racing practise into their weekly training, or aiming to better their times. I didn’t expect some squads to get any PBs at all on Sunday because we are in the middle of a really hard training block ready for the Counties or Regionals next year but many of you did! 50% of your races ended up in you getting a new personal best time (PBs) – well done! Some of you even gained new Yorkshire and North Eastern times for next year – you now have 135 Yorkshire and North Eastern Qualifying times for next year between you!

Thanks so much, as always, to our coaching team, officials, poolside team and other helpers and to SADSA for organising another good day of racing at our pool.

Since our last racing update from the North Eastern Championships, Eliza Hammond, a long time Kingfisher member and currently training in our Senior Performance squad has qualified for, and is entered to compete at the Winter National Championships in Sheffield this December. What an incredible achievement, and hot on the heels of competing at, and reaching the finals of the Summer Nationals earlier this year. Very well done Eliza!

What an amazing team we are so lucky to have!

Ridings dates for your diaries for next year (let’s see if we can hold onto our crown – all galas will take place at our pool again and the team will be selected on specific criteria including fastest times, warm up will be 6pm for a 6:30pm start)…