	Week Beginning 05/01/2009

Lothian Swimmers at the Spanish Special Olympics.

(Front: Mark Meadows, Ian Yirrell and David Fergus. Back: Scott Quin)

A team of four boys from Lothian were chosen to represent Great Britain in the Spanish National Special Olympic swimming event.

These games were held in Castellon in October 2008. The boys along with their coach, Yvonne Anderson travelled to East Midlands where they met up with the other athletes representing Great Britain, and from there they travelled to Spain.

Scott Quin, David Fergus, Ian Yirrell, and Mark Meadows, who all swim for the Loanhead Dolphins, had been training all summer for this event.
The four boys formed a 4 x 50m medley relay team with Ian swimming backstroke, Mark swimming breaststroke, Scott swimming butterfly and David swimming freestyle. They swam brilliantly cheered on by all their supporters and came home with the gold medal.

The boys were also extremely successful in the individual events. Scott winning gold medals in 100m freestyle and 50m breaststroke. (The Michael Phelps of the games!) Ian winning a Gold medal in 50m breaststroke, and a silver medal in 50m freestyle. David wining a Gold medal in 100m breaststroke and a silver medal in 100m freestyle, and Mark winning a Gold medal in 50m freestyle, a total of 9 gold medals between them!! All four boys supported each other and celebrated their achievements, making them a very successful team.

Scott was also chosen from the Great Britain team to recite the Special Olympic motto on behalf of the British team at the opening ceremony. This speech was in front of 8,000 spectators and appeared on Spanish television and Eurosport.

Apart from their success all the boys really enjoyed their visit to Spain, and are now looking forward to the Great Britain national games to be held in Leicester in July 2009.

Many congratulations to the team and good luck in Leicester this year.

Jacky Yirrell
Loanhead Dolphins Coach

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Lothian Carpet Bowlers at National Championships

Despite the snow a team of 16 from Lothian, together with supporters, battled their way to the Dundee International Sports Centre to take part in the 29th National Carpet Bowls Championships on Saturday 7 February 2009. Sadly the teams from Aberdeen and Highland had even worse conditions to contend with and had to call off, so it was a much-depleted field that contested this year's event.

Several of the team benefited from byes in the early rounds but things generally went well and a good number were still involved at the quarters and semi final stages. Sadly things began to go wrong at this point and Lothian only had two players in a final. This turned out to be a repeat of last year's section 4/5 men’s final (ambulant & B3 bowlers, unrestricted) between defending champion Neil Shirley and Jimmy Restorick. Matches between these two are always close affairs and this was no exception. An extra end had to be played to determine the winner and it was Jimmy who took the honours to claim the 2009 title. This was not, however, our only champion as Margaret Brown won the ladies section 4/5 following a round robin competition, which saw Eileen Restorick take runners up spot. It was a clean sweep for Lothian in section 4/5 and a clean sweep for Prestonpans Disabled Bowling Club. Well done to all of them!

Moira Wright, defending champion in section 9 (LD) and winner on 7 previous occasions, was unlucky not to reach her final. A mix up in the quarter finals by officials resulted in the wrong opponent being played and after achieving a very narrow victory, this result was then scratched. Undaunted Moira played her quarter final match again, and won again, only to then lose in the semi to the lady she had played and beaten in the match that didn't count! One thing we can be sure of, however, is that Moira will be back and challenging for the title in future years.

Other notable performances came from Amanda Craig who bowled well all day only to get knocked out in the semi final of section 9 (LD) and Garry Whitfield and Fiona Hagenbuch, both beaten semi finallists in section 6/7 (ambulant & B2 bowlers, restricted).

Helen Bruce
Lothian Disability Sport Bowls Coordinator