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Ellie’s in the swim of things for the Tigers
Ellie Parks is only nine years old but she is already in the swim with Milford Tigers and making waves across Pembrokeshire and South Wales with her talent for swimming all four strokes and also being a useful individual medley swimmer as a bonus.
She is the only member of the Tigers who competes in West Wales Regional events and once a month takes part in the Skills Squad under the watchful eye of Paul Dowie, the county’s Swimming Development Coach, and a member of the Welsh Accreditation Group after achieving qualification times in the 200 metres freestyle and the 200 metres breaststroke – not bad going for someone who didn’t take to swimming at all when she first attended the local swimming club in Milford Haven.
Slow start – early success
At first Ellie tried gymnastics and enjoyed that before testing the water again at the Meads Leisure Centre, where her mum Tracey is a duty officer but only took her daughter along as a supportive parent and watched from poolside. Ellie’s dad Steve might not be so keen on swimming but he has been a very good footballer in his time and still plays for Milford Athletic – and supports Ellie fully in her quest to achieve success in her chosen sport.
After her initial misgivings she was soon in action and was quick to take on board the techniques for the different strokes of front crawl, back stroke, breast stroke and butterfly, so that she is also very competitive in the individual medley, where she starts with back stroke, and follows up with butterfly and breast strokes before finishing with a fast front crawl.
There was early success for Ellie to provide encouragement as she won a gold medal in her first club championship, against older competitors, and she hasn’t really looked back since then.
Total commitment
The training sessions require a great deal of effort and although Ellie’s mum Tracey is now coach it makes no difference because she is treated exactly the same as the others. Trai8ning takes place, up to two hours a time, on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday evenings, plus a session on Friday morning for good measure. That leaves Thursday, where there is dry side coaching in the dance studio, and Saturday – where there is usually a competition to attend!
Sessions include a warm-up of up to 32 lengths of the pool, using the different strokes, and at the moment she is working on her entry into the water and tumble turns to help reduce her times in competition.
Hard work paying off
All the hard work is definitely paying off, however, because in the last two years, at under eight and under nine levels, Ellie has won gold medals in all four strokes in the club competition and the individual medley – and performed admirably ‘up the line’. She has competed at venues in Swansea, Llanelli and Cardiff and in the West Wales Sub-Regional Competition she took on some competitors older than herself but still achieved a gold, silver and bronze as her reward. It is sometimes hard to take on older swimmers but with encouragement from Tracey (and the odd bribe!) she is ranked second in Pembrokeshire to Ffion Davies (Tenby).
Her next step is to move up through the British rankings and if determination, commitment and talent are anything to go by then we will hear a great deal more about Ellie Parks in the future because this Milford Tiger has already shown she has what it takes!
Pictures supplied by Pembrokeshire Photography
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