Dolphins do well at Forres meet
The Delting Dolphins came second at the Forres two day meet, with a total of 25 medals being won between the Delting swimmers.
The competition began with Leigh Wishart doing a PB in the 100m breaststroke. Jamie Murphy and Felix Gifford then took to the water in the breaststroke where Jamie did a good PB and Felix won the bronze medal. The younger boys were up next with Scott Irvine, Logan Jamieson, Zevf Vessey and Joshua Maccoll all improving their PB times in the 50m freestyle. Kayleigh Thomson and Shannon Davies also improved their times in this event.
In the 11 years 100m backstroke Brandon Ratter improved his time by over 15 seconds. David Wallace swam a brilliant race, leading his heat by over half a length and improving his time by 26 seconds to finally be awarded a silver medal.
The 12 year old boys were next and gave Delting a fabulous clean sweep of the medals in the 100m backstroke, with Saul Swanson winning the gold in a 3 second PB, Michael Southern the silver with a PB and Calum Maccoll winning the bronze. In the girls event both Lauren Hughson and Imogen Raikes swam well to get PBs and Arwen Raikes swam a brilliant race to win the bronze medal.
The oldest boys swam the 100m butterfly with Zai Vessey taking a good 3 seconds from his time and Tom Raikes destroying the field on his way to winning the gold medal. In the 200m IM Leigh swam well again to produce a good PB. Felix then took to the water for his IM. Going out from the start he hit the front in the fly and produced a good backstroke. Forres’s Alan Clark then overtook Felix in the breaststroke but Felix pushed the accelerator in the freestyle to take back the lead to win a fantastic gold medal in a new Shetland record time 2.20.49.
In session two, the 8-10 year olds swam 50m backstroke. Again Scott, Joshua and Logan did very good PB times. Zevf swam this event extremely well to win a great bronze medal. For the girls both Kayleigh and Shannon got PBs. Brandon then did another PB in the 100m breaststroke.
In the 12 years age group both Saul and Calum, and for the girls Imogen and Arwen, all did PBs.
Felix then won gold in the 100m butterfly which he led from start to finish. Tom then powered the 100m freestyle to win a very impressive gold medal.
Delting’s medley relay teams also did really well with the team of Michael, Calum, Saul and David winning the silver. The older boys’ team of Zai, Jamie, Tom and Felix won the bronze in their age group.
On Sunday both Brandon and David achieved good PBs in the 100m IM, Brandon taking 13 seconds off and David 21 seconds.
The 12 year old boys swam very well with Michael achieving a 12 second PB and Calum taking 10 seconds from his time to win a well deserved bronze medal. Saul powered his way through a very impressive IM to win a great gold medal, on his way taking 9 seconds from his time.
In the 8-10 year old boys’ breaststroke, Scott, Logan and Zevf produced more PB times, as did Kayleigh for the girls.
In the 15 and over backstroke Tom swam a very determined race to win a bronze. Jamie then swam a fantastic PB in the 100m freestyle. Felix swam next and hammered this event, turning in an impressive 25 seconds, a good quarter a length ahead of any one else, then powered the rest to take the gold.
Leigh swam a determined freestyle to record another PB. In Saul’s butterfly swim, he led from the start to produce a great 4 second PB and a fantastic gold medal. Arwen then swam a great PB in her fly to win the silver.
In the 8-10 years 100m IM both the boys and girls swam very good PBs. Scott and Kayleigh were swimming this for the first time. Joshua took 17 seconds from his time, Zevf 18 seconds and Shannon 8 seconds.
In the older age group Imogen swam well taking 8 seconds from her time. Lauren swam well also as this was the first time she had competed in this event. Arwen swam a very powerful event to take 7 seconds from her time.
The 8-10 year olds swam their final event, the 50m butterfly, and again produced good PBs. Scott recorded a time for the first time, Logan took 11 seconds from his time and Zevf 5.
Jamie swam his final individual event, the 100m backstroke, taking 8 seconds from his time. Felix swimming in this event came away with a good silver medal.
In the 11 years freestyle Brandon produced a good PB cutting 24 seconds from his time. David then swam a brilliant race to lead from start to finish to PB and win a much deserved gold medal.
For the 12 year age group Saul took his last individual gold medal with a fantastic well-controlled race in a PB time of 66.74. Michael in the same heat also swam very well to take the bronze and Calum produced a PB. For the girls both Lauren and Imogen improved their times.
Arwen was in the last heat for this event in a very gritty race, being neck and neck with Rebecca Smith from Skye. Arwen pulled ahead in the final 5m to win a brilliant gold medal. Zai swam well in the 200m IM to achieve a PB. Tom swam a very determined race in this race to lead this event from the start to win his final individual gold. Rachel was Delting’s last swimmer and she did a good PB in the IM.
The much anticipated freestyle relays came next. The boys’ team of David, Michael, Calum and Saul led from the front and dominated this event to win the gold.
Next came the showdown between the hosts Forres and the Delting older boys. Zai started the relay off keeping in touch with the Forres swimmer and neck and neck with the Thurso one. Jamie took over and produced a great swim keeping with the Thurso swimmer but Forres started to pull ahead. Felix then took over and stormed passed Thurso and flew up the final length to catch Forres. Tom and the Forres swimmer went in together, with Tom powering the 50m to touch first winning a great gold medal. In the girls event the Delting team were very unlucky to just be touched out of third place.
Delting would like to thank Liz and Graham Southern for accompanying them on this trip.
