A group of seven Sid Vale Sharks swimmers travelled to the Life Centre in Plymouth to represent the club in the Devon County Sprint Gala. 2013.

The event consisted of the swimmers having to participate in 50m races in all four strokes, freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly.

Awards were given to the first three swimmers in each of the strokes and overall age group awards (up to age 14) to highest six point’s scorers across all four strokes.

Swimmers who represented the club were; Girls 11yo - Hannah Beglin and Hannah Rudgard; 12yo Connie Harris; 16yo plus - Jess Bendle and Hannah Domhof and in the boys 13yo - Thomas Davy and Matthew Domhof. All the swimmers achieved a number of personal bests in their respective events.

On the day the Sidmouth swimmers produced a number of great performances.

The most impressive was a fantastic first and second in the 50m breaststroke for 11-year-old girls Hannah Beglin (44.18secs) and Hannah Rudgard (44.30secs), who beat off competition from 52 swimmers across Devon.

Hannah Rudgard also achieved third place finishes in the 50m butterfly (38.83secs) and 50m freestyle (33.96secs) and was also fifth in the 50m backstroke (40.62secs). The combination of these performances helped her to achieve third place in the overall age group award.

In what was a hotly contested event other performances of note included top 10 finishes by Hannah Beglin – sixth in the 50m backstroke, Thomas Davy – ninth in the 50m breastroke, Hannah Domhof – fifth in the 50m butterfly, eighth in the 50m breastroke and tenth in the 50m backstroke and freestyle and also Jess Bendle who was ninth in the 50m backstroke and tenth in the 50m butterfly.

In the overall age group awards Hannah Beglin finished 9th, Connie Harris (who had just turned 12 and was the youngest swimmer in her age group), was placed 22nd whilst Matthew Domhof finished 15th just ahead of Thomas Davy in 16th.