Open Meet Report

We again attended a number of Open Meets in 2013 of varying standards and varying team sizes. Many of our swimmers came away with medals from these meets, as well as a host of PB’s, speed awards and club records over the course of the year. The highlight was County Championships and a separate report is included below.  It was pleasing to see a number of swimmers competing in Open Meets for the first time this year and it was even more pleasing to see them come back to further meets later in the year.

 

We try to attend a variety of meets with different distances and at different levels so there is a chance for everyone to find something to suit them, particularly since you get to choose the events instead of the Team Manager deciding.

 

On the website you will see pages indicating which swimmers have achieved County Qualifying Times. However, this only compares the qualifying standards to the swimmers’ PB. In order to actually enter the County Championships, the times must have been achieved in a licensed meet within the qualifying period.

So if you are interested in entering County Champs in future, please look out for details of the Open Meets we attend so you can aim to achieve the necessary times.

 

I am always pleased to see how our swimmers support each other at these meets – we may go with a small team sometimes but without exception our swimmers get plenty of encouragement from the others. Obviously, the more people we have there, the more noise we can make in support of the team so it would be great to get even more new attendees this year.

 

I have mentioned above about the team spirit shown at these meets and I must also say that behaviour has been excellent, making my life on poolside far easier and enjoyable. My life is also made easier by the poolside help given to me, so that I don’t have to always be there with the team. I must therefore thank Alan

Brown, Lou Gooden, Sarah Way, Karen Jones and Claire Marett for their help through 2013, as well as our senior swimmers who have helped me when they have been swimming. (Apologies if I missed anyone – your help is appreciated nonetheless).

 

I look forward to seeing many more of you at the Open Meets this year.

 

Kevin Binns

Open Meet Co-ordinator 

 

County Champs AGM 2013

What a great year we had at Counties this year. Medals are a rare occurrence for us, this year we got 6.  Gold medals are even more rare – we got 2 of those.  However, even more pleasing was the sheer number of swimmers we had competing and the number of PBs they achieved.

We had a total of 68 swims by 18 swimmers and 42 of those were PBs – that is over 60%.  Factor in that some of those PBs were achieved against times only set 1 or 2 weeks earlier at Club Champs and you can see how well people swam.

Top billing in terms of placings was Erin O’Meara.  Swimming in her first county champs (and only her 3^rd Open Meet) she won 2 gold medals (50, 200 Breast), 1 silver (100 IM) and 1 bronze (50 Free).  She also had 3 other PBs and placed 4^th overall in the 9yr girls age group – a fantastic achievement.

Our other medals went to Jonluke Summerfield who took bronze in the 17yr 100 Breast and 200 IM – well done Jonluke.

The stand out moments didn’t stop there.  Charlie Wray blitzed the first 50m of his 100m Free… and then just kept going.  Massive PB and broke the magic 1 minute barrier for the first time – a truly fantastic swim that will stay with me for a long time.  Next there were our consistent performers.  Jack Fagan qualified for 10 events this year – great stuff.  He proceeded to swim 10 PBs – remarkable.  Victoria Pope also swam 10 events (and qualified for a couple that she didn’t even enter) and got 7 PBs, another great effort.  Then there was Laura Jones who was so determined she got off her sick bed to swim a PB and break her own club record in 50m Back.  She was close to the medals – imagine if she had been fit!!

We had numerous other great swims so apologies for not mentioning everyone.  One thing everyone can share in is that the behaviour and team spirit were excellent and a credit to the club.  After 2 full-on weekends I came away exhausted but immensely proud of how our swimmers performed against the big clubs in the county.  Thank you, swimmers, for a richly rewarding experience.

Kevin