There was a notably quieter air at Yate last Sunday for the final races of this year’s club championships with many of our younger members training rather than competing. There even looked to be space to breathe on the balcony.
However, our ultra-competitive band of ten year old girls was still out in force, sharing out the medals and racking up the PBs. There was some fine technique on display in heat one of the 200IM from Abbie Matthews, Lily Clarke and Sophie Noble who finished in that order, all in new best times. Jess Hawkins’ aggressive racing style was evident in picking up the 100 breaststroke gold followed by silver in the 100 free behind Abi Butters, who won double gold with an awesome 100 fly too. Names to watch out for there in the future!
Other girls with excellent 200IM swims were Becca Lowther, Skye Jee, Carolina Silva and Thea Stephens Tuffee. All enjoyed PBs of at least 7 seconds. Skye looked to have the bit between her teeth all night with three further best times in the 100 metre races, including a gold medal in the fly. Thea added three PBs on the night to her haul for this championships, making her our most improved swimmer of the meet.
The best race of the night was the final 200IM for boys (men). Peter Gleed and Jon Lowther were in adjacent lanes and were separated by just 0.01 seconds – gold to Peter. Jon has now won and lost races this meet by that slenderest of margins.
Ten year old Sam Fry collected another gold in the IM and achieved his 12 year old county time for next spring by going out really fast over the first two strokes. Cody Farrell battled hard all evening to pick up three silvers behind Sam and three new PBs – not sure about those trunks though!
There were two fantastic breaststroke swims on the evening. The tanned Ben Newman won the overall title by quite a distance and Arno Turner demonstrated powerful technique to take the 13 year old gold ahead of Henry Bennett. These two have been racing each other for five championships and Arno was naturally elated to finish ahead of Henry for the first time.
Never under-estimate Henry though. He recovered with phenomenal swims in the 100 free and fly to finish second and third respectively across all age-group swimmers. His fly time took over two seconds off Peter Rogers’ previous club record. Wow!
George Boulton dominated the 100 free, the only competitor under a minute, and improved his 200IM time on the evening by five seconds to boot. The 100 fly title went to Peter Gleed, just one stroke ahead of Neil Holloway.
Final word must go to Jessica Shaw who had a clean sweep of all sixteen events. I hope all our younger swimmers take time out to watch Jess’s technique, if you don’t know who she is, she’ll be the tall young lady with 16 trophies at the club’s presentation evening.
Presentation of all the trophies/awards will take place at the Presentation Evening on Saturday 3rd January 2015 at Chipping Sodbury Town Hall - SO PUT THE DATE IN YOUR DIARIES NOW and watch out tickets will be on sale soon!