After scraping ourselves out of bed to reach Beechdale for the 8am warm-up, the announcement of its delay was not what we wanted to hear. Still, our `free’ programme detailed the many Portland swims to come – 50m in all strokes and 100m IM. Exciting stuff. It also listed the rules. Well …
A and B grade heats, both subject to their own `no faster than’ times for individual age groups, with intermittent finals for 50m sprints in combined age groups, bringing together the fastest six A and B swimmers.
Heat prizes: medals for the six fastest heat declared winners of the 100m IM and all A grade events and B grade 50m events, in every age group (if within 1 second of cut-off times). Six fastest swimmers of 50m events (A and B together) qualify for combined age group finals.
Finals awards: medals plus cash for the fastest three, including those with speeding tickets.
Parents perplexed, but the swimmers just did what they do and got on with it …. with fantastic results. Everyone went home with a medal and 38 PBs were recorded!
Highlights of the day:
- Grace Rigby PB’d in the IM and came 3rd in grade age group for 50m Free.
- Erin Birney was 4th in grade age group for Breaststroke, 5th Back, 6th Free and PB’d in the IM.
- Stanley Toplass PB’d 3 times (Free, Fly & IM), earned a Speeding Ticket in the Fly (slicing 4 seconds off his previous best), but it got him to the final.
- Emma Horne reached 3 finals and got 2 PBs (Back & Free).
- Olivia Misiuda PB’d in Breaststroke and qualified for 2 finals.
- Edward Roberts reached 3 finals, going quicker than the heats in all of them, setting 2 successive PBs in both Free and Back!
- Jaime Misiuda came 3rd in both her finals, PB’ing in the Fly.
- Lucy Toplass got 2 PBs (Back & IM) and came 1st in grade age group for Breast.
- Mia Cunnison PB’d in both her races (Back & IM), knocking almost 8 seconds off her time in the IM.
- Rebecca Horne did 9 swims, i.e. reached every final, set PBs in every stroke, 3 of them in finals.
Special congratulations to:
- Connor, who has been trying so long and finally succeeded in breaking the 31 second barrier for 50m Freestyle. Also, 9 swims (i.e. all finals), 5 PBs! Whoa!
- Isabelle Day, who PB’d in all 4 of her heats, then again in the 2 finals she swam (Back & Free), achieving a 50m free County Time; only hundredths off a County Time in Back and Breast too.
- Beatrice Munro for a 4 second PB in 50m Free and collecting cash at her very first Open Meet (for 2 second place finals)!
- Ben Brown for 3 swims, 3 PBs – over 3 seconds in the Free meant a Speeding Ticket, but a County Time; a place in the Breaststroke final and a second County Time – only 3 weeks after his 9th birthday!
Medal winners:
I00m IM
Isabelle 4th, Beatrice 3rd, Jaime 5th, Olivia 6th, Rebecca 3rd, Emma 3rd, Stanley 3rd, Connor 5th
9 & 10 Years Finals
Beatrice – 2nd Butterfly & 2nd Freestyle
Isabelle – 2nd Backstroke
11 & 12 Years Finals
Jaime – 3rd Butterfly & 3rd Freestyle
Edward – 3rd Breaststroke
13 & 14 Years Finals
Rebecca – 2nd Breaststroke, 3rd Backstroke & 3rd Freestyle
15 Years & Over Finals
Emma – 2nd Breaststroke
Connor – 3rd Butterfly
Despite numerous hold-ups (one parent got most of her Christmas cards written in them!), it was a very good day with some notable memories, two of which were:
- Ben’s bullet dives – the quickest reaction times of anyone at the competition.
- Beatrice’s arm-raise, acknowledging the crowd’s cheer at the announcement of her name before the final, and thumbs up from the pool at the end of it. There wasn’t a dry eye in the Portland mum enclave.
An absolutely huge THANK-YOU to Dom, who looked after all the swimmers, giving them advice and support throughout the long day.
WELL DONE to our amazing swimmers – you make us all very proud.
You can see the full Meet Results at
http://www.radfordswimmingclub.co.uk/content/openmeetresults2013/index.htm
