Dan & Alys at The Welsh Winter Championships

Read about Dan Jones and Alys Thomas, and the dog’s weekend at the Welsh Winter Championships –

Written By Dan Jones –

” The Swim Wales Winter Championships were held in Swansea from the 17/12/2021 – 19/12/2021. For 2021 the event was swam long course to provide a Commonwealth Games nomination opportunity in line with the Swim Wales Commonwealth Games Nomination policy.

Alys is a partnered athlete with Arena UK and Solo Sports, and as Alys & I train together at the Swim Wales HPC we also live together being in a long-term relationship. Arena are also kind enough to support me in the lead up to Commonwealth Games which is a great help & very much appreciated.

With Alys’ performances at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, she has already achieved the nomination standard times for the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

Alys & I were competing over all 3 days in Swansea, swimming in the 50/100/200 butterfly & 50/200 freestyle for Alys then the 50/100 freestyle & 50 butterfly for myself.

Read More >

We are pleased to announce a sponsorship deal with Great Britain’s Olympian Laura Stephens.

Laura has been a regular member of Great Britain’s senior swimming team over the past four years and has competed at Olympic, World, European & Commonwealth level . At the Tokyo Olympics Laura was a semi-finalist in her main event, the 200m butterfly, after making the final at the 2021 European Championships. Laura picked up her first European gold as a member of the successful women’s 4 x 100 Medley Relay Team at the same European Championships in Budapest .

Laura has recently moved her training base to the Loughborough NTC after many successful years at Plymouth Leander SC .  Laura will work with coach David Hemmings and is targeting the 2022 World Championships in Fukuoka, Japan from 13^th – 29^th May and the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham  from 28 July – 8 August . arena UK are looking forward to working with and supporting Laura at this point in her swimming career.

As the lockdown road map continues to move forward with plans and more restrictions being lifted from Monday 12th April  meaning indoor pools can now also open, we got in touch with some of our athletes to see how lockdown has affected them, how they feel about the Olympics Trails and the road to Tokyo.

We sent the same set of questions to Toby Robinson (TR), Conor Ferguson (CF) and David Murphy (DM), heres what they had to say –

Read More >

Monday 29 March saw the second stage of the first phase of lockdown restrictions eased across England – The restrictions relaxed on Monday allowed people to meet up outdoors in groups of six or two households, and allow a return to outdoor sports. This includes swimming in outdoor facilities, great news!

We have loved seeing all the people getting back to swimming and asked Lucy Thornton what she thought about getting back into water after all this time, here is what she had to say –Read More >

arena UK, are excited to announce a new 3 year sponsorship contract with Tamryn Van Selm .

Read More >

arena UK, are excited to announce a new 3 year sponsorship contract with  Cameron Williams.Read More >

arena UK are excited to announce a new 3 year sponsorship contract with Kayla van der Merwe . The 16 year old Winchester City Penguins swimmer has had a standout year in her first year racing  internationally for Great Britain.Read More >

Alice Tai.
S8 category.Read More >

arena has announced the signing of American Olympic hero Mark Spitz as a brand ambassador, 46 years after he first collaborated with the company in the pioneering days of sports sponsorship. Spitz became an iconic figure at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, winning 7 gold medals, all in world record time, and helped to propel the efforts of entrepreneur Horst Dassler as he launched the arena brand in 1973.

Read More >