You will probably have already seen the fantastic photographs on Facebook of the inaugural event at Ellerton Lake – Champion of Champions North. Amanda Bell and her team created a really special event that I’m sure will be popular for years to come. The results are now available on the website and we are creating a new picture gallery which will be uploaded in the coming days along with Amanda’s report.
Fast swimmers, endurance swimmers – everyone came out of the water to the same applause. Congratulations to James Leitch winning the men’s event in 3 hours 24 minutes and 28 seconds – an amazing swim. The ladies winner was Caroline Duffy in a time of 4 hours 2 minutes and 10 seconds – also an amazing swim.
We also had 2 junior swimmers who deserve a special mention – 15 year old Ellie Knight who completed the full 9 mile course in 5 hours 17 minutes and 57 seconds and our youngest swimmer Madeleine Adams who, at 13 years of age, completed the 3 mile event in 1 hour 34 minutes and 22 seconds.
As always, our events cannot run without the help of an army of volunteers. Well done to everyone who willingly gave their time and effort to make the event such a success.

BLDSA Ambassadors Graham & Margaret Smith were invited to attend the 2017 IMSHoF Induction Ceremony. A selection of photos:

Top Left: Ned Dennison of IMSHoF & Graham & Margaret Smith of the BLDSA

Top Middle: Margaret Smith – BLDSA & Gary Hall of Outdoor Swimmer

Top Right: Centre – Gerrard Carty of ILDSA & Steve Millar, Chairman of ILDSA

Bottom Left: Guests at the IMSHoF Induction ceremony 2017

Bottom Middle: The Chapel where the Induction Ceremony was held at Old Windsor

Bottom Right: Gerrard Carty,  Graham & Margaret Smith outside Windsor Castle

Group shot

picture video

The BLDSA Annual General Meeting was held on Sunday 12th March and ushered in the 2017 season with enthusiasm and anticipation for another successful year!

Our new President was inaugurated – Mark Sheridan has promised to do his best to attend all this years swims (and he intends to swim in some as well, not to mention organise a few!)

Get your swims booked soon as places for many are now limited.

All the BLDSA committee look forward to welcoming you old and new over the next 2017 swimtastic season!

The website now contains the BLDSA Recognised Swims for 1995 to 2016

We are continually updating pages and hopefully we will add previous years’ swims as Zoe (our new recorder) processes the mountain of paperwork.