The National Dwarf Games 2011 had more than a few records broken this year firstly with the numbers attending with a little over 155 athletes taking part and secondly with a good number of games records being broken.

The weather was fine for Saturday’s track and field event with new member Mark Swan breaking the record in the under 11’s age group for Cricket Ball throwing followed by new World Record Holder Sean Clare winning the Discus event with a new Games record. Many of the competitors broke their own personal bests and with new events available in London for the dwarf class this bodes well for our medal chances.

The Swimming Gala this year was held in a new venue and following in the footsteps of Eleanor Simmonds some of the young swimmers showed great promise. Nicole Turner won an amazing 5 gold medals and showed that the next generation of S6 class swimmers are on the move. Leo McCrea won the Margaret Scott trophy this year, and other performances of merit came from Carys Coppen, Michael Thompson, Callam Lee, Megan Atkinson and Lauren Sullivan. There is a whole group of young dwarf swimmers who are coming through the ranks now and we wish them luck for the 2012 season.

Following the Swimming was Table Tennis and Cycling with a fabulous performance from Penny Dean who made it to the finals of the Ladies competition. The junior men’s event was also very exciting culminating in a final between USA team member Kevin Cekanor and GB team member Jack Shephard. Great Britain won a very closely contested game to win gold, I’m sure we’ll see more of these two athletes at the world Games in 2013.

The Cycling this year was hotly contested with Steve Scott winning his first Gold medal  in three years in the senior group, Danish team member Stefan Garde pushed him hard to the very end, but Steve clinched it in the end by only 0.3 of a second.

The last day of the event held the Basketball and Football competitions, the Ladies football being especially exciting this year having to go to a penalty shootout in the final.

Overall the National Games hosted an ever increasing number of dwarf athletes who are all working hard to improve year on year and with the World Dwarf Games coming up in the USA in 2013 the GB team is the one to watch once again.