More success for swimming clubs at North District meet
Members of four swimming clubs from Shetland travelled to Inverness at the weekend to compete in the North District meet.
Golden girl Sarah Williamson won gold in the 11/12 age group 100m breaststroke with a fantastic swim and new personal best (PB) of 1.21.81. In the longer breaststroke event, the 200m, she also swam well to take away the bronze. Sarah, the only representative of the Shetland Amateur Swimming Club, also produced PBs in the 100m butterfly, 100m freestyle and the 200m freestyle.
There were six swimmers from South Mainland ASC. Donnie Price, 13, swam in every event in the 13/14 year old age group, and only missed out on a PB in one race.
Not having had many opportunities to race 200m butterfly, but having shown steady improvement in the shorter 100m race, Donnie expected to gain a good PB and was pleased to finish in 2.50.03, a 13 second PB. Another tough event, the 400m individual medley (IM), resulted in an excellent six second improvement for a 5.28.69.
In the 400m freestyle Donnie achieved eighth place and was the fastest 13-year-old. However, his biggest success of the weekend came in the 1,500m freestyle, where he finished in 18.09.57, a seven second PB and overall bronze position.
Also competing in the 13/14 age group was Karl Eldridge, 14, who had a good two days of racing, achieving six PBs out of seven races. His best improvement was in the 200m breaststroke where he took a massive 14 seconds off his previous best to finish with a 3.08.92. Another fantastic drop in time was in his 100m freestyle, nearly four seconds faster than before with a 1.07.07.
In the 10-12 year age group, the youngest of South Mainland swimmers at the meet this year, 11-year-old Eddie Price, had a successful weekend, finishing
with a PB in all but one of his nine races.
Eddie’s weekend started with a seven-second PB in the 400m freestyle, lowering his time to 5.25.33 and overall 13th place.
His last event of the meet was the 200m freestyle where he improved by six seconds for 2.34.58, coming 14th in the age group and fastest 11-year-old.
He was delighted with a 3.24.34 in the 200m breaststroke, a massive 12 seconds off his previous best.
In the same age group James Morris, 11, successfully gained PBs in all of his seven events.
Four second PBs in the 100m butterfly and the 100m breaststroke brought his times down 1.36.65 for butterfly and 1.40.97 for breaststroke. However, it was in the 200m backstroke that he made his biggest improvement. He took a superb seven seconds off his previous PB to finish with a time of 2.56.01 and gain 16th overall place.
South Mainland had two girls competing in the 13-14 year age group. Kirsty Laurenson, 13, managed to beat her entry times for five out of six events.
She demonstrated tremendous improvement in both the butterfly distances, taking two seconds off her 100m for a 1.21.62 and just under 10 seconds in the 200m butterfly, with a 3.09.85. In the 400m IM an eight-second PB gave her a 6.10.93.
Sarah Keay also swam six events and had an excellent 200m breaststroke, with her time of 3.15.17 a six-second improvement. She was also very pleased to gain a PB in her 100 freestyle with 1.09.16 and to finish close to entry times in her other events.
A spokeswoman said South Mainland ASC would like to thank NorthLink, Mainlands, Freefield Pharmacy and Solution X for their support and sponsorship.
Delting Dolphins took eight swimmers to the event, and with all producing a least one PB it was a successful trip. Calum Maccoll had a fantastic weekend. In his first event, the 400m freestyle, he sliced just under 30 seconds from his time to swim under five minutes for the first time. He produced PBs in
the 100m butterfly and 200m backstroke, then pulled out a great swim in the 100m freestyle to take three seconds from his time to come fourth.
Calum took a tremendous six seconds from his time in the 200m breaststroke and seven seconds from the 200m IM which saw him gain the first reserve for the evening final. He also did a PB in the 100m backstroke and sliced seven seconds from his time in the 200m freestyle. Calum was never out of the top 10 swimmers for all his events.
David Wallace, also swimming in the 11/12 age group, produced many PBs. In the 400m freestyle he swam well to a good PB while in the 100m freestyle he went under 1.10 for the first time. He also did PBs in the 100m breaststroke, the 100m backstroke and took even seconds off his PB in the 200m freestyle.
Joshua Maccoll, also swimming in this age group but only turning 11 the day before the event, swam a fantastic 100m butterfly to a good PB time.
The older boys, 13/14 year old, also swam well. Saul Swanson produced PBs in all his events, taking four seconds from his 100m backstroke, 11 seconds from his 200m freestyle, four seconds from his 100m butterfly, two from his 100m freestyle and eight from his 200m backstroke. In what was a great weekend’s work for him, Michael Southern managed to go under the 1.10 mark in his 100m freestyle for the first time as did Iwan MacBride. Michael also did a good PB in the 200m backstroke.
Arwen Raikes as also swimming very well, producing PBs in the 200m butterfly, 200m freestyle, 100m freestyle and taking six seconds from her 200m backstroke. This event also saw team mate Leigh Wishart swim a good PB.
Lerwick Swimming Club had two swimmers at the meet, sisters Megan and Chloe Nicolson, who swam a full programme and produced some very good times.
Megan swam in the 13/14 age group and showed the other competitors how to start, gaining the advantage from every one of her starts very impressively.
Megan swam good PBs in the 200m butterfly and 200m backstroke while a fantastic 400m IM saw her take a good nine seconds from her time.
Chloe, in her first time at a district meet, did herself proud by producing great PBs in the 100m butterfly, seven seconds came off her 200m backstroke, four from her 100m freestyle, a massive 10 from her 400m IM and six from her 200m breaststroke. She also did a good PB in the 200m IM.
It was a great weekend for all the competitors, showing that Shetland has a great base of up-and-coming swimmers for the future.
