Another chilly Saturday night on 19th December saw Nottingham Portland swimmers take to the pool for yet another JC Dobb gala, this evening at Lammas Leisure Centre, Sutton.
Raffle tickets were purchased, unnecessary layers removed and water bottles were placed on standby as our swimmers took their places for another splashtastic performance.
We sat the first two races out then Briony O’Keeffe started us off with the 50m backstroke. This was swiftly followed by a PB from Anatoly Meersmann taking a fantastic 4.23 off his time in the equivalent event.
In 12/u 50m breaststroke, Ava Tucker achieved a great second place and Harrison Morroll swam up two age groups in a competitive race.
New times were set in 10/u 25m backstroke, firstly Charlotte Clay with a good third place and Ethan Hough brought our first first place in a time of 21.82.
Briony and Raj Malhi both finished third in their 50m breaststroke events.
It was a gala debut for Rebecca Ekwuru and her first race found her swimming up an age group in the 12/u freestyle relay. How’s that for a baptism of fire?? She and her team-mates, Lucy Waller, Ava and Mai Drury finished an impressive second.
Bethan Simmons and Stanley Toplass both touched in third in the Open 50m breaststroke.
Just 5 events after her first race, Rebecca swam to a super second place finish in 25m freestyle individual. Well done Rebecca – we hope you enjoyed your first gala experience and will come back for many more! Ethan took third place in the boys’ event.
We waited till Mai stepped up for the 50m fly before we saw another PB with a fantastic second place finish, followed 3 races later by a PB and third place from Lucy Toplass in the Open 50m freestyle.
We then had three first placings in 6 races, with fabulous swims by Connor Cruickshank (Open 50m freestyle), Stanley (14/u 50m fly) and the relay team of Bethan, Lucy Toplass, Rebecca Horne and Beth Taylor (swimming up) in Open 4×1 freestyle.
Charlotte accomplished a third place in 10/u 25m breaststroke and Ethan set new PBs in 25m breaststroke and 25m butterfly – yes, he swam all the boys’ 10/u individual events! Good going, Ethan.
Bethan and Stanley mirrored each others’ result again, this time in 14/u 50m freestyle with second.
Rebecca Horne and Connor also achieved second in Open 50m fly.
There were some solid swims and good relay leg performances by Judd Tucker, Lucian Munro and Lucy Waller, who all swam up age groups.
Unfortunately we also had a few disqualifications as is sometimes the case in the fast and furious world of competitive swimming.
However Mai added to her PB by finishing first in the 12/u 50m freestyle and the gala ended with a noisy 10 swimmer cannon.
There were no blocks to dive from at this gala which most likely affected some swimmers’ expected times. The Club came 5th overall but was not too many points from finishing 3rd. We also had a much higher points total than normal. We managed to compete in 43 out of the 48 races so with a full complement of swimmers we could have been right up there. As it was, the swimmers on the night did the Club proud.
Well done to you all.
Log in and go to Swimmers’ Corner Gala News for the full results.
