Medal-winning performances from Lerwick swimmers at open championships

The Lerwick swimming team’s fine form continued at the weekend’s North District Open Championships at Westhill in Aberdeenshire.

On Saturday Craig Nicolson’s stunning performance and seven-second personal best time saw him take the silver medal in the men’s 400m freestyle.

Amy Harper took the gold in the women’s 50m freestyle and silver in the 200m freestyle, while Andrea Strachan narrowly missed out on gold in the 100m breaststroke, taking the silver medal.

For the first time in many years Lerwick fielded a girls’ relay team in the 4×50 freestyle and Amy Harper got the team off to a cracking start, taking a commanding lead. Thirteen-year-old Megan Petursdottir was next and held her own as a City of Aberdeen swimmer closed the gap.

As Nicole Petursdottir took over she had a lot of work to do to keep the team in contention, and as Andrea set off on the final leg the gold medal had slid out of reach. The on-form Andrea dug deep to finish in second place and a well-deserved silver medal for the Lerwick girls.

On day two Amy Harper continued her good form, taking silver in the women’s 800m freestyle. She went on to take the silver in the 100m backstroke and finished off a stunning weekend with gold in the 50m freestyle with Andrea taking the bronze.

Craig’s PB in the 100m breaststroke of 1.10.69 broke the Shetland record subject to ratification. This record was previously held by Kevin Gifford.

The relay girls took their second silver medal in the 4×50 medley relay. Fourteen-year-old Megan Nicolson went first in the backstroke leg where she held her own, Andrea Strachan then set off on the breaststroke leg, taking a narrow lead for Nicole’s fly where she looked to be in good form. It was left to Amy to swim the anchor leg, with another gutsy performance from Shetland’s number one female freestyler taking the team to its second relay silver.

It was a busy weekend for some of Lerwick’s younger squad as they travelled to Dundee for the Stars of the Future Swimming Gala.

Chloe Nicolson took part in the 12 years age group and Emmy and Anne Hutchison in the 11 years. In the final of the 100m freestyle Chloe took the gold medal – the time of 1.06.20 will give many older Shetland girl swimmers something to think about. Anne took bronze in the 50m breaststroke final and her sister Emmie also produced some good PBs.