The 8th Open European Down Syndrome Swimming SC Championships 2025 took place at the municipal pool in Albufeira, Portugal on October 25th to November 2nd. Most of the athletes selected by DSS-GB to represent Great Britain were very familiar with the pool, having competed here at the World SC Championships in 2022.
There were 16 countries represented by 103 swimmers – Great Britain, Portugal, Spain, Japan, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Australia, Hungary, Ireland, Croatia, Estonia, New Zealand, Finland, United States and Iraq.
The Championships featured a full programme from Monday 27/10 to Saturday 1/11, with heats in the morning, finals and relays in the afternoon, and a rest day on Thursday. This is about competition not participation – the one gold medal goes to the fastest in each event. The Championships were conducted professionally throughout and fully in accordance with World Aquatics rules.
Eleven European Champions from Great Britain (gold in 35 events between them) – the fastest overall in their events:
Mark Evens (4 golds)
Ellen Stephenson (6 golds)
Cerys McCrindle (1 gold)
Mark Holmes (1 gold)
Alex Edwards (2 golds)
Amalia Freeland (4 golds)
Zac Lacey (2 golds)
Harvey Stonebank (8 golds)
Joe Edwards (4 jnr golds)
William Roberts (1 gold)
Caitlin Hatfield (2 golds)
DSS-GB took a team of 35 swimmers to represent Great Britain, including first time international competitors Joe Edwards (Verulam SC), Amy Henson (Wycombe District SC), Grace Hone (Fareham Nomads SC) and Zak Pankhurst (Hackney Anaconda) – realising their potential talent as spotted by DSS-GB at the British Down Syndrome Swimming Championships.
To be selected, the DSS-GB squad each had to achieve at least 4 qualification times set by the DSS-GB lead coach and team manager – times which were quicker than the event’s qualification times. The swimmers could enter a maximum of 8 individual events. The fastest swimmers were selected for the relay teams.
Each swimmer should be proud of their selection to represent Great Britain – a huge achievement and honour. Every one deserved their place in the squad – they were amazing in and out of the water all week.
The GB team stayed in the Vila Gale hotel, a 20 minute walk from the pool. Breakfast was at 7am, warm up at 8.30am with the heats starting at 9.30am. The swimmers returned to the hotel for lunch, followed by a short rest period. Finalists headed back to the pool at 3pm ready for the afternoon session which tended to finish at about 6pm after relays and medal ceremonies. A lot of stamina is required to compete over the 6 days but the swimmers are incredibly resilient and handle such a high pressure environment with incredible composure.
Great Britain faced stiff competition across the week, but came out on top as the best performing team, followed by Portugal in 2nd and Poland in 3rd, achieving 42 European gold medals, 21 silver medals and 19 bronze medals. The coaches were impressed by the number of personal and seasonal bests across the team.
In the T21 Down syndrome events, 6 individual World Records were broken. There were numerous stand out British performances with many medallists and finalists:
Amalia Freeland had an incredible week, breaking the 200m and 400m IM open World Records plus the 200m, 400m and 800m freestyle senior World Records, winning 4 gold, 3 silver and 1 bronze medal and 6 relay medals. Congratulations Amalia on receiving the European top female T21 swimmer trophy.
Reflecting on her week in Portugal, Amalia said “I really enjoyed my time at the European Down Syndrome Swimming Championships in Albufeira. I had been training really hard before the competition and I was really happy with my results and the results of the whole team. I really enjoy being part of Team GB and it was fantastic that we were the Top Team! I was amazed to be Top T21 Female in the Competition. It was a huge surprise and I was so happy to help the Team win overall. Our Female relay team was also fantastic. We broke World Records swimming by ourselves! This competition has made me want to train even harder, swim faster and make sure we are World Champions again when we go back to Albufeira next year. Thank you to everyone who makes all this possible!”
Congratulations also go to:
Mark Evens on coming 2nd in the European male/open T21 rankings with 4 gold and 2 bronze medals plus 7 relay medals and on breaking 2 M1 European Records
Caitlin Hatfield on coming third in the European female T21 rankings with 2 gold, 3 silver and 2 bronze medals plus 7 relay medals and on 4 senior European Records
Zac Lacey on coming 4th in the European male/open T21 rankings with 2 gold and 2 silver medals plus 4 relay medals and on breaking 2 M1 European Records
Scarlett Jones for coming 8th in the European female T21 rankings with 3 bronze medals plus 5 relay medals
Holly Sullivan for coming 9th in the European female T21 rankings with 4 bronze medals plus 3 relay medals
Mark Holmes on a M2 World Record and coming 9th in the European male/open T21 rankings with 1 gold and 2 bronze medals plus 1 relay medal
Joe Edwards in his first international won all 4 25m junior events – 4 gold medals
In the Mosaic Down syndrome events, 13 individual World Records were broken.
Congratulations to:
Harvey Stonebank on receiving the European top male/open Mosaic swimmer trophy with 8 gold medals (50m free, 100m free, 50m back, 50m breaststroke, 50m butterfly, 100m butterfly, 100m IM and 200m IM). Just back from injury, Harvey made huge strides, breaking the open European Records in 50 fly, 100m IM and 200m IM and setting senior World Records in 100m free, 50m back and 100m fly.
Ellen Stephenson with 4 open World Records (800m free, 1500m free, 50m back and 200m back) and coming 2nd in the European female Mosaic rankings with 6 gold (100m free, 800m free, 1500m free, 50m back, 100m back, 200m back) and 2 silver medals (200m free and 400m free)
Alex Edwards with 1 open World Record (200m fly), 2 M1 World Records (50m back and 100m fly) and 1 M1 European record (50m fly) and coming 3rd in the European female Mosaic rankings with 2 golds (50m fly and 200m fly), 3 silvers (50m free, 100m free and 50m back) and 1 bronze medal (100m back)
Congratulations to the following individual European medallists (see table below):
Cerys McCrindle, William Roberts, Caroline Faithfull, Matthew McCreadie, Lizzie Allen, Dorian Williams, Jemima Rudd-Jones and Jake Vicars.
DSS-GB lead coach Neil Lacey said:
“Taking a huge Team GB to an international event creates lots of challenges for everyone in and out of the water, however Portugal have been the perfect hosts for us to perform at the highest level.There are so many swimmers who performed beyond our expectations and this showed with the numerous World and European records set by GB swimmers. Our record haul of medals topped off by the best performing country award for GB is an amazing achievement. The coaching team who I have the privilege to lead, are extremely proud to be part of such an incredible team.”
We owe a big thank you to the local organiser, Federação Portuguesa de Natação (FPN) and to the municipality of Albufeira for staging such a high quality event and providing the arena for swimmers with Down syndrome to compete internationally. As evidenced by the number of new World and European records set across the week, the standard of Down syndrome swimming continues to improve.
FPN will be staging the 12th World Down Syndrome Swimming Championships, from October 30th to November 7th 2026 – we are looking forward to returning to Albufeira, officially designated as a European City of Sport in 2026 by ACES Europe (Association of European Sports Capitals and Cities), focusing on enhancing sports infrastructure, promoting active lifestyles, and hosting major events such as the World DS Swimming Championships.
Thank you too to the poolside team who work tirelessly to support the swimmers to do their best. The preparations start months before the event (thank you Julie and Neil) and the full days at the event require the poolside team’s total focus, support and energy. Thank you to Julie Evens (team manager), Neil Lacey (lead coach), coaches Alex Freeland, Betty Logan, Andrea Manson, Sandra Proudfoot, Terry Raddings, and poolside support John Conway (welfare/safeguarding), Bryan Hughes, Ian Logan, Beatrice Rouyer-Brown, Kathryn Stephenson and Joh Sydenham.
In the background, taking care of their swimmers, the parents and carers proudly support the team. We are all grateful for the opportunity to come together to create one big team with the swimmers at its heart.
Results:
Great Britain won gold and set the following SC Relay World Records, rewriting female relay history all at one meet:
- 4x50m freestyle relay: Scarlett Jones, Cerys McCrindle, Amalia Freeland, Caitlin Hatfield
- 4x100m freestyle relay: Scarlett Jones, Caroline Faithfull, Amalia Freeland, Caitlin Hatfield
- 4x200m freestyle relay: Amalia Freeland, Scarlett Jones, Caroline Faithfull, Caitlin Hatfield
- 4x50m medley relay: Caitlin Hatfield, Holly Sullivan, Amalia Freeland, Scarlett Jones
- 4x100m medley relay: Caitlin Hatfield, Holly Sullivan, Amalia Freeland, Scarlett Jones
They also won gold in the
- 4x100m medley relay: Caitlin Hatfield, Holly Sullivan, Amalia Freeland, Scarlett Jones
The Great Britain male/open relay teams had an impressive Championships too:
- 4x50m freestyle relay silver: Zak Pankhurst , Will Browning, Dylan Williams, Mark Evens
- 4x100m freestyle relay silver: Zak Pankhurst, William Roberts, Dorian Williams, Mark Evens
- 4x200m freestyle relay gold: William Roberts, Zak Pankhurst, Zac Lacey, Mark Evens
- 4x50m medley relay silver: Mark Holmes, William Reed, Zac Lacey, Mark Evens
- 4x100m medley silver: Dylan Williams, William Reed, Zac Lacey, Mark Evens
The mixed relay teams:
- 4x50m freestyle gold: Amalia Freeland, Caitlin Hatfield, Dorian Williams, Mark Evens European Open Record
- 4x50m medley silver: Caitlin Hatfield, Zac Lacey, Holly Sullivan, Mark Evens
T21 Finals Results:
Until the World Champs in 2026
