Nicolson breaks the 30-second barrier at swimming meet

A first milestone for every young competitive swimmer is to go under 30 seconds in the 50 metres freestyle, and at the weekend 13-year-old Chloe Nicolson of the Lerwick Swim Team did just that.

She was competing at the Westhill Enquest invitational meet and her time of 29.81 was an outstanding achievement. She finished 13th out of 76 swimmers in what was an open event with swimmers ages ranging from 12 to 41 years old.

Chloe’s team mate Megan Petursdottir, 14, finished 10th in this event, bizarrely equalling her best time to the 100th of a second with 29.05. Her frustration was evident as she had set out to go under the 29 seconds.

The event was a mixture of age group and open events, with all the 50m events being open, and both girls got their weekend off to a great start in the 200m freestyle.

Chloe, competing in the 12-13 years age group, had a four-second improvement which saw her go under two minutes 30 seconds for the first time. Megan, competing in the 14-15 age group, recorded a four-second improvement to go under 2:20.

In the 100m breaststroke Megan swam just slower than her best time.

Both girls took part in the women’s open 50m butterfly, Chloe recorded a PB while Megan swam just outside her best but was still good enough to finish 10th overall from a field of 76.

In the Saturday afternoon session, Megan improved on her best time in the 200m breaststroke by four seconds, and followed that with a two-second improvement in the 400 freestyle.

In the 100m freestyle both girls were just outside their best times. Chloe in the 50m backstroke swam just outside her best.

On day two both girls started off in fine form. There was a 4.5 second improvement in the 200m backstroke for Chloe while Megan had a slight improvement on her 200 individual medley time.

In the 50m open breaststroke Megan was a few tenths of a second slower than her best and in the 100m individual medley Chloe once again improved her time by one second.
The swimmers said they would like to thank Lesley Moir and the Westhill Swimming Club, plus all the officials who continually give up their valuable time.