Market Drayton Swimming Club achieves record success at county championships
A Shropshire swimming club is celebrating after seeing huge success at the 2025 county championships - including a total of 150 county medals across five days of racing.
Market Drayton Swimming Club (MDSC), which caters for athletes from age 8-years-old, saw 34 of its 39 swimmers qualify for the championships, held over three weekends at the WV Active Central Baths competition swimming pool in Wolverhampton.
The club saw many podium finishes with 46 gold medals, 51 silver medals and 53bronze medals – a total haul of 150 county medals across the championships and a 90% increase on the squad’s tally from last year – testifying to the swimming programme’s current success as one of the leading swimming clubs in the county.
Eight MDSC athletes ranked in the “Top 3” overall in their respective age categories, with Connor Simpson finishing 1st in the 16-year-old male category and Tom Ammundsen 2nd in the same category. Scarlett Highfield came 1st overall for the 16-year-old girls while Paige Simpson also came 1st in the 15-year-old girls’ category.
George Simpson came 1st for the 14-year-old boys while Ava Highfield came 2nd for the 14-year-old girls. Logan Simpson was 2nd overall for the 12-year-old boys and Lacie Lightfoot came 3rd overall for the 12-year-old girls.
Head coach Luke Harris said: “At Market Drayton we aim to encourage our swimmers to fashion a strong work ethic and help them to aspire to be the best version of themselves. More than 85 per cent of our athletes qualified for this year’s championships across a total of 384 events, which is a huge achievement.
“This is certainly down to the hard work the swimmers put in and the commitment of our strong team of coaches. It’s been fantastic to see the number of PBs fought for throughout the competition and the support the swimmers gave each other through the highs and the lows.”
During the championships, the top eight swimmers in the 50m and 100m heats must swim again in the finals, with swimmers at MDSC making 157 finals, plus 137 top eight finishes in the 200m, 400m, 800m and 1,500m events.
“This is a total of 294 top eight finishes - an astonishing number,” said Mr Harris. “For people who don’t swim, such large parts of the sport make it seem like an individual pursuit. This just isn’t the case. It takes every one of the swimmers who raced at this year’s county champs to make Market Drayton the team it is. We are very proud of our club and all our swimmers.”
Market Drayton Swimming Club looks at taking development swimmers from ASA stage seven onwards. To join, the club offers an initial assessment, followed by three free trials.
The club also has a very limited number of spaces available in their performance squad, get in touch now to join their programme.
The club is also looking for sponsorship from local businesses.
