Like England’s Rio World Cup squad, we had a few youngsters on the team that travelled to Eckington Swimming Pool on Sunday 11 May – swimmers, who, at age 9, had only just become eligible to enter Open Meets –
along with seasoned competitors who have clocked up quite a few Licensed Meet miles in their time, including our own Frank Lampard (most senior England squad member for the non-football fans), Dom.
The event organisers gave awards to the top 6 swimmers in each age group in each event: 4th to 6th placed swimmers received a medal on ribbon and 1st to 3rd a boxed Gold, Silver, Bronze medal.
Considering Portland had swimmers in 20 out of the 22 events and every single one of them got a PB and/or won a medal(!), there is a long list of accolades:
PBs & New Times (NT)
Briony – 50m backstroke, 50m breaststroke, 100m IM (12s!), 50m butterfly (NT), 50m freestyle
Chelsea – 50m breaststroke (15 seconds!), 100m IM (30s!) & 50m freestyle (18s!)
Connor – 100m freestyle & 100m backstroke
Dom – 50m freestyle
Finlay – 50m breaststroke (10s!), 100m IM (12s!) & 50m butterfly (7s!)
Fran – 50m backstroke (NT) & 50m freestyle (NT)
Gaby – 50m backstroke, 50m breaststroke (4s!), 100m IM (7s!) & 50m butterfly
Isabelle – 50m backstroke, 100m IM (7s!) & 50m freestyle
Jaime – 100m backstroke (6s!)
Lucian – 50m freestyle (10s!)
Lucy – 50m freestyle
Mia – 50m freestyle (6s!), 100m breaststroke (NT) & 100m backstroke (NT)
Olivia – 100m freestyle, 50m freestyle & 100m backstroke
Rebecca – 100m butterfly (8s!)
Stanley – 100m IM
Medal Winners
Beatrice – 4th 50m freestyle, 4th 50m butterfly
Connor – 3rd 100m freestyle, 3rd 50m freestyle, 3rd 100m backstroke
Dom – 2nd 50m freestyle
Edward – 6th 100m freestyle, 6th 100m backstroke, 6th 100m breaststroke
Finlay – 4th 100m IM
Gaby – 2nd 50m butterfly
Isabelle – 1st 50m backstroke, 3rd 100m IM, 4th 50m freestyle
Jaime – 3rd 100m butterfly, 6th 50m freestyle, 4th 100m backstroke
Olivia – 2nd 100m backstroke
Rebecca – 1st 100m freestyle, 3rd 100m butterfly, 1st 50m freestyle, 2nd 100m backstroke, 3rd 100m breaststroke, 3rd 200m IM
Stanley – 5th 100m IM
A huge well done to everyone who took part, especially first-time Open Meet-ers: Chelsea, Finlay, Fran and Lucian.
Special mentions for:
Briony for swimming new fastest times in all 5 of her races – by 2 seconds in 50m breaststroke despite her cap being pulled off by her goggles after diving in! (Dom fished it out during the race)
Chelsea for the biggest PBs of the day in all 3 races – averaging 16 seconds per 50 metres!
Finlay for huge PBs in all 3 races, even though he’s only just become old enough to compete AND winning a medal at his very first Open Meet!
Gigantic thanks to Dan and Dom for their help and support, as always.
