The national games took part over three days with ten sports spread out over the weekend, all the events this year took place in the Wolverhampton area and were well supported by the local council and it’s councillors with the Mayor and several other local VIP’s choosing to visit the event.

The track and field events were popular as ever with a British record being set by Sean Clare for discus and several Paralympic hopefuls taking part. The young athlete of the year awards were won by Freya Woodhead and Ben Prater. Many of the teenage throwers are showing potential for the future and there were some very close competitions with medals only separated by a few millimetres.

The DSA swimming gala was held at the Cheslyn Hay swimming pool and were attended by Paralympic gold medallist Ellie Simmonds M.B.E who helped the younger swimmers in the width races and took part in the relay event to help a team with a missing swimmer. Later in the day Ellie signed her book and handed out the medals to the winning swimmers.

In the afternoon there were so many sports to enjoy, table tennis for both junior and senior players, hockey, cycling, new age kurling, and shooting. There were exciting games and races in all these events the shooting and cycling being particularly exciting. The first four cyclists in the men’s senior race finished within one second of each other with only 0.3 separating first and second. Similarly the shooting competition was just as close with just one point separating first and second and the same was true of the juniors with only one point also separating first and second. The hockey as always was exciting and very popular with both players and spectators.

The final day of the weekend is the team sports events, basketball in the morning with both senior and junior tournaments, every year both age groups improve and 2012 was no exception. This continuous improvements looks good for 2013 as the basketball will be very popular when we will be competing in the USA at the World Dwarf Games. The final event of the weekend was the ever popular football tournament, this year starting with an under 8’s match which was spectacular, followed by great football in all age groups. The ladies football as in previous years proved popular with everyone and was a pleasure to watch. The football world championships are very important to our players and we hope that in 2013 the UK team will be able to retain its world crown.

This year’s National Games were as popular as ever with 141 competitors taking part and with athletes competing at both national and international level, times have never looked better for dwarves getting involved in sport.

To relive all the great times had at the National Games you can still buy a photo DVD on our website http://dsauk.org/national-games-photo-dvd. If you did not attend this year but have been inspired to attend a DSAuk event then please contact our office for more details http://dsauk.org/contact-us