Open Meet Report

We had 7 swimmers at County Champs, plus 2 others who competed in relays, 3 swimmers at Long Course Regional Champs, 1 swimmer at Short Course Regional Champs and 3 swimmers at County Masters Champs.

As we go to, press we have received details of the accepted swimmers for 2017 County Champs to be held Jan/Feb. We have 13 swimmers accepted to swim a total of 28 events, plus we have entered 6 relay events which should give swims to a further 8 – 10 swimmers.

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 or Consideration 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.

As well as the great team spirit, I must also say that behaviour is excellent, which makes life far easier for whoever is team managing. I have had great support from a number of people on poolside and I must therefore thank Jack Jackson, Karen Jones, Richard Jones, Caroline Presland, Jill Elsen, Adele Rose and Sarah Hambury for their help through 2016. (Apologies if I missed anyone – your help is appreciated nonetheless).

Keep an eye on the website for details and I look forward to seeing many more of you at the Open Meets this year.