There were darting dives, tight turns, vigorous underwater work, quality kicking and some storming last lengths from Portland swimmers at home-from-home pool, Hucknall Leisure Centre, during the 20th Annual Falcon Sprint Open Meet.
Trophy awards were handed out to the fastest six boys and girls in 100m Individual Medley (IM) according to Heat times; but the fastest six boys and girls from 50m Heats of the four different strokes would have to compete again in Finals.
Swimmers switched between pool and sports hall for their events throughout the day. By the end of the Meet they were exhausted, sometimes climbing out of the pool to join the queue for their next race, especially those competing in Finals.
The swim-break-down:
- Gaby – qualified for 3 Finals, swimming faster than the Heats in each of them to take home 5th place awards in 50m backstroke and 50m freestyle and 1st place trophy in 50m butterfly; she had qualified for the Final in second, but raced all the way for the win and a new PB!
- Tilly – set a good New Time in 50m breaststroke and a PB in 100m IM.
- Grace – PB’d in 100m IM and equalled her existing best time in 50m freestyle to the one hundredth second!
- Lucy – achieved PBs in both events: 50m freestyle and by 3.5 seconds in 100m IM, displaying great technique.
- Chloe – won 3rd place trophy in 50m backstroke. She also had a great swim in the 50m breaststroke Final, after coming in as reserve, then, despite losing her goggles, she pushed on to finish 5th and posted a PB!
- Dahlia – got four 4ths! She gained 4th place awards in 100m IM, also 50m backstroke, 50m butterfly and 50m freestyle, swimming faster than in the Heats in all 3 Finals.
- Mia – put in good performances and swam faster than before in the 100m IM.
- Rebecca – reached 50m backstroke and 50m freestyle Finals, claiming 6th and 3rd place trophies respectively.
- Emma – attained same place awards, but in the contrasting strokes to her sister, in butterfly (6th) and breaststroke (3rd). She was 5th in 100m IM.
- Finlay – set a new fastest time in 50m backstroke with good technique.
- Ben – PB’d in all 3 of his events and reached Finals in 2: gaining 4th in 50m breaststroke and 5th in 50m freestyle through great racing.
- Stan – collected awards for all 4 events he entered: 5th for 100m IM, 6th for 50m freestyle (PB), 4th for 50m butterfly and 2nd for 50m backstroke in which he PB’d twice (Heat and Final), following Coach’s advice and kicking his legs to great effect!
- Jaime – Special mention of the day must go to Jaime, who received trophies in all 5 events, PB’d 5 times across 4 out of the 5 events, reached all 4 Finals and swam faster than the Heats in 3 of them! Her trophy haul and PB summary is: 100m IM – 3rd & PB, 50m backstroke – 4th & PB, 50m fly – 2nd & PB, 50m breaststroke – 4th & 2 PBs in the Heat then Final! To TOP that, she came 8th out of all female swimmers (over 120 of them!) at the Meet in the TOP GIRL points table! WHAT A STAR!
As one of the smallest clubs represented at the Meet, our 13 swimmers should feel very proud that they placed Portland 6th in the top club points table and made 21 Finals between them. Everyone in the team got a PB (18 in total) or trophy (25 won) or both!
So, WELL DONE to all our swimmers for achieving so much in what seemed a very long day – Stan’s shattered demeanour upon his return from the fly Final to immediately join the freestyle Final line-up was the look of the day!
HUGE THANKS to indomitable Dom, as trusty coach, for his advice and support given to all the swimmers once again.
