Swim Series 2024

It Wasn’t what we were expecting, but we got the Swim Series 2024 done!

To get 3 large open water swims amongst the second consecutive season of unsettled weather. Where so many sea swims have been cancelled, is something we are really pleased with. But also something that needs to be reviewed!

That is for another day, Today is all about the 3 Swims that we got done! Over the 3 days we managed to get 250 plus swimmers in the water and it has to be said, that none of this could of happened without.

The Activity Centre at Llys Y Fran Country Park and especially the Activity Manager, Hope Filby (Never has anyone been more appropriately named). We approached Hope with our dilemma and an idea! She jumped into action. All positive with loads of support and no hurdles, A massive thank you from us and we will definitely be back.

I appreciate the series was meant to be all about sea swims and the changes made didn’t suit everyone. However those that did embrace the alternative plan, seemed to enjoy the location at LYF. Both swims had there own challenges, with lots of rain, poor visibility and long stretches between buoys with a bit of zigzagging and turns around the course all made for a testing swims. This design was done on purpose to make it a bit more challenging and to keep the constant doubt in the swimmers mind!!

Then on Sunday we literally had a window when the sea went calm and the sun came out, which allowed us to get the Blue Monster Done!! Watching all the swimmers head out of the Blue Lagoon and into Abereiddy Bay was awesome! Such a sight to behold and a good feeling. Every single swimmer smashed the course. I genuinely mean that, the quality of the swimmers was very good, all super strong in the water.

Scoring The Series

Below is the table for the Series. Basically it was a running time, All 3 times were added up and the winners were the ones with the quickest overall times. Each swim also had standalone competitors taking part and the full results for each swim are recorded separately

• Llys Y Fran Friday Night (Great White)
• Llys Y Fran Saturday (Green Monster)
• Blue Monster Sunday (Abereiddy)

The male category in the swim series 2024 was dominated by Michael Phelps (Sorry Davies) who walked away from the weekend with 8 awards! Jake Scott pushed him hard on Saturday but the times speak for themselves.

The most competitive category was the F50+ and the overall female winner, with Nicole Lett, Kerstin Thomas and Sian Clement all battling it out, which resulted in only 3 minutes separating the 3 of them over 3 days of swimming. With Nicole taking top spot.

I managed to have brief chats with many of the other series swimmers over the weekend, with many saying their goal/challenge was to see if they could do 3 big swims in 3 days under race conditions and on Sunday morning many were delighted that they achieved their goal, and that is what its all about! ,;;;;;;

Finally a massive thanks to our safety and registration team for travelling across the county and submersing themselves in the series for the weekend. And another unsung hero of the weekend is Tim Plumb from Real Time Racing and of the Narberth Nobler. The locations, rain, lake/sea water and my ability tested the system and Tim was on hand behind the scenes sorting it out for us. Another great Pembrokeshire Service.

Swim Series 2024 Results