RASCALS RACE TO SUCCESS

RASCALS squad swimmers have had an excellent start to the calendar year with many incredible performances, lots of personal best times (PBs), plenty of Regional Times achieved and a League Series Win!

During the first couple of weekends of February, swimmers competed in the Annual Derbyshire County Championships, held at the new Moorways 50m pool in Derby for the first time, across a full Olympic style programme of events. The club had a massive 51 swimmers qualify for the event, an increase of nearly 15% on the previous year. In total the club had 42 finalists, 67 top six finishes and a huge 31 medals won. Beyond those making finals, each and every swimmer came away with fantastic results with multiple swimmers achieving PBs and over 20 swimmers setting Regional consideration times!

The squad swimmers have also been busy competing in the Derwent District Swim Series too, which is a 3 round league based competition swum across January, February and March, where all swimmers compete representing the club in both individual and relay events. The RASCALS swimmers led from the outset of round 1, winning the gala by 10 points from Dronfield Dolphins and in the second round, although it was slightly closer, Ripley won again, this time by a margin of 9 points to Belper Marlin. These two wins meant that we led the table by 26 points going into the final round.

The final saw much stiffer opposition, with Ripley having a massive tussle with Belper for overall glory throughout the entirety of the gala. And unsurprisingly it all came down to the final race with Ripley having a very slender 4 point advantage…. but by coming 2nd in the exciting cannon relay at the end of the gala the swimmers had done enough to become overall Series Champions for the first time since 2020! A magnificent achievement for a fantastic bunch of swimmers! The club’s attention now turns to the Regional Championships across April and May and our popular summer open meet at Alfreton LC in July, where we anticipate further excellent performances and PBs!

If you would like to expand your swimming activities or try something new, please contact us. contact@ripleyrascals.org.uk | www.ripleyrascals.org.uk

SUDOKU #34

Fill in all the numbers!

This is a sudoku

1 square grid

81 cells

9 3x3 blocks

1 simple rule: Use all the numbers 1-9, with no duplicates allowed, in any row, column, or block.

This puzzles has been devised by the brilliant Professor Rebus. For more of his puzzles visit www.pitcherwits.co.uk