Gala Report

John Carrie Memorial Shield Gala – Saturday 11 March 2017

On Saturday 11th March,29 of our junior swimmers travelled to Sevenoaksto compete in the John Carrie Memorial Shield. This gala features 10 & u, 12 & u, 14 & u and Open age groups and the races were time faulted i.e. if you swim faster than a certain time you get no points.

Thank you to our club captain, Ben Fitzsimons, who came along to support the team and did a brilliant job in drawing us lane 3; right in the heart of the racing and away from the prying eyes of the judges!!

Also, a big thank you to Helen and Pat Wood, Tony Cannon, James Winnifrith and Gary Brice for their help organising the swimmers on poolside and a HUGE thank you to Michele and Ann, our officials, without whom we couldn’t run these galas.

This gala always throws up some tough competition and this year was no exception with teams from Sevenoaks, Edenbridge, Chislehurst, Hastings and Sutton providing the opposition.

Ouryoung team of swimmers excelled themselves, setting 43new PB times over the course of the 51 events.

The team were disqualified in 4 events (1 individual events and 3 relays for take over infringements).

Several our swimmers were swimming in one and in some cases two age groups above their actual age.

Overall, we finished 4th with 148 points.

Congratulations to all our swimmers but in particular to the top point scoring swims. Swimmers won4x 1st places,10x 2nd places and 7 x 3rd places.

Superb 1st Place wins by:

Emily Dench in 10u50m Back; Charlotte Dench (not to be outdone by her little sister) in 14u50m Fly;

Superb relay wins too for the 10/U boys freestyle relay and the 14/u girls in the medley relays taking 1st place by 0.01s ahead of Chislehurst.

Excellent 2nd places for:

Ed Winnifrith in OpenMens 50m free; Thomas Collier in 14u 50 free; Maddy Holland in Open Ladies 50m back; Adam Winnifrith in Open Men’s back; Toby Henbest in the Open Men’s breaststroke; Arthur Wood in 10u 50m free; Marcus Henbest in Open Men’s 50m Fly.

Excellent relay swims for the mixed 8x25m fly squadron; boys 14u medley; girls 10u medley relay

Well fought 3rd places for:

Harry Bevan on debut in 12u 50m breast; Ashleigh Cox in 12u 50mfly; Bethany Holland in 10u25mfly; Ruben Cowley-Antelo in 10u 25m fly; Ellen Wood in 12u 50m back. The mixed 8x25m breaststroke squadron and mixed 8x25m free squadron also swam to 3rd place.

TF

We had two swimmers who swam so fast they went under the time fault with large personal best times –

Charlie Brice in the 50m back

Noa Bossard in the 50m breaststroke

New PBs:

There were43 PBs overall! 25 in the individual 50m races and 18 in the 25m races either as individual swims or the opening relay leg. Full details of all the PBs are on the results on the website.

Well-done to all swimmers and keep up the great work!