Young swimmer Alicia Hungary for success

Mayor of Walsall, councillor Marco Longhi welcomed Pelsall swimmer Alicia Dingle and her family to the Mayor’s Parlour this week, to celebrate Alicia’s first international call up, as part of Team GB, to take part in the sporting festival in Hungary.

Alicia was joined by her proud family in the parlour – parents Neil and Tara, brothers Cameron and Dominic and grandmother Christine.

The Mayor and Mayoress spent time chatting with the family about Alicia’s punishing training schedule, which involves swimming from 5.30am to 7.30am most days as well as gym work in the evenings.

Councillor Longhi said: “It is wonderful to see what a member of an everyday family can achieve, but clearly, family support is absolutely key to Alicia’s success.”

Alicia started out her swimming at Walsall Swimming Club with coaches Gwyn and Terry, but later progressed to The Royal Wolverhampton where coaches Marc Foster and Marc Spacman set about changing her stroke to improve her technique.

Alicia said: “I didn’t like it at first because it slowed me down and I’d been used to being the fastest.”

Both coaches clearly knew what they were doing though, as Alicia is currently the fastest female 100m swimmer in Europe for her age group, as well as being in the top 10 for other distances. She also won gold in the 200m freestyle event at the 2016 English nationals.

Speaking on her daughters succcess, Alicia’s Mom Tara said: “It really does need commitment from all of the family and we all have to make sacrifices – to be honest we rarely go out! Luckily though, Cameron and Dominic are very proud of their sister and happy to support her.”

Asked on the possibility of his daughter competing at Tokyo 2020, Alicia’s Dad Neil said: “Tokyo is a possibility, but it’s still a long way off and Alicia has her GCSEs next year, so we’re concentrating on the here and now at the moment.”