The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
Seven South Lincs Competitive Swimming Club members were in action at the East Midlands Regional Championships in Corby.
The swimmers from the Spalding-based club produced some excellent performances and set a lot of new long course personal best (PB) times, achieved finals and collected two silver medals and a bronze medal.
Day one saw Beatrice Finch set a new PB in the 400m freestyle, finishing strongly to post a time of 5.03.39mins.
She followed that up with another long course best in the 50m Breaststroke with a time of 40.73secs.
Charlotte Ciuberkyte was also in action in the 50m breaststroke and was swimming the event long course for the very first time.
She produced a solid swim and broke the 40 second barrier, stopping the clock in 39.88secs.
Oliver Sorrell had an excellent day of racing and produced new PB times in all three of his events.
In the 100m butterfly, he reduced his best time by over a second to finish in 1.23.48mins.
An outstanding 200m freestyle then saw Oliver attack the race from the gun and lower his PB by almost six seconds (2.31.62mins).
In his final event of day one, Oliver produced his fastest ever 50m freestyle to register 32.18 seconds.
Next up, Mollie Briggs took part in the girls’ 1,500m freestyle and took fifth place in the girls’ 14 years age group with a new PB of 18.31.66mins, an improvement on her result from last week in Loughborough that saw her achieve her pool qualifying time standard for National Open Water Championships.
Anya Strickland also posted new long course PB times in her three events over the course of day one.
She lowered her 400m freestyle PB by four seconds to finish in 5.04.92mins.
In the 200m butterfly, she produced a small PB by registering a time of 2.55.88mins.
But she saved her best performance for her last event, the 100m freestyle, as she swam strongly to finish in 1.07.55mins.
Nitesh Anbazhagan had a strong first day of racing. He posted a new PB time in the 100m butterfly of 1.14.80mins and then went on to lower his personal best in the 100m breaststroke by over half a second to 1.19.98mins.
His heat time was enough to see him qualify to the boys’ 13 years age group final of this event. Anbazhagan further lowered his heat time to post 1.19.84mins and claim fourth position.
Isobel Gosling produced medal-winning performances throughout the day, despite being just outside her PB times. She claimed the silver medal in the girls’ 11/12 years 1,500m freestyle and then went on to claim a second silver medal in the girls’ 200m Butterfly with a final swim time of 2.44.97mins, just fractionally outside her best.
Day two saw more strong swimming from Sorrell.
He started the day by lowering his 400m freestyle long course PB by 15 seconds to stop the clock in 5.15.21mins.
Sorrell set a further long course PB in the 200m butterfly with 3.10.86mins.
Getting better as the day went on, there were also new best times for him in the 100m freestyle and the 50m butterfly with times of 1.10.55mins and 36.12secs respectively.
Anya Strickland was also on personal best form posting new best times in her two events, the 100m Butterfly and the 200m Freestyle.
She swam both events hard from the start and stopped the clock in 1.18.22mins for the 100m Butterfly and 2.26.30mins for the 200m freestyle.
Ciuberkyte stepped up to the 100m breaststroke following a strong sprint showing on day one.
She produced a long course best time of 1.28.54mins and gained valuable long course experience at her first Regional Championships.
Finch then swam a solid 200m freestyle to get her second day off the mark.
She was just outside her best time registering 2.27.64.
However, in the 200m backstroke, she produced the swim of her life as she left the remainder of the field behind her, swimming strongly from the start and opening up a gap that no one could close on her. Finch stopped the clock in a time of 2.40.01mins for her fastest ever 200m backstroke and narrowly missed out on a place in the final, finishing tenth.
Gosling was still feeling the effects from a busy first day at the championships. On day two she posted solid swims in both the 200m freestyle and the 100m butterfly with times just outside her best of 2.28.67mins and 1.17.83mins respectively.
She then produced a new long course PB in the 50m freestyle where she stopped the clock in 32.54secs.
Unfortunately, she finished just outside the top eight in her fly event – narrowly missing the final in ninth place.
Finally, Anbazhagan had a strong second day, posting a new PB in the 50m butterfly (32.07secs). He also secured a place in the final of the boys’ 13 years age group 50m and 200m Breaststroke.
In the 50m he produced a strong swim to clock 35.58secs and claim the bronze medal.
In the longer distance 200m event, Anbazhagan swam a well-structured race to take fifth in 3.00.48mins.
- A team of ten South Lincs Competitive Swimming Club talents produced some strong showings as they headed to Loughborough to participate in the East Midlands Regional Time Trial.
This event was for the distance freestyle events (1,500m and 800m) and was contested within the window for qualification to National Championships.
Mollie Briggs and Isobel Gosling led the way by becoming the first two South Lincs swimmers assured a place at National Championships for 2019.
Both participated in the 1,500m freestyle, with the intention of achieving their pool-based qualification times for National Open Water Championships, to be held on August 5 at Rother Valley Park in Sheffield.
Neither of the girls disappointed, with both of them taking their races out strongly and holding a fast paced rhythm through to the finish.
Briggs posted a time of 18.32.05mins to achieve the qualifying standard in the girls’ 14 years age group, while Gosling clocked a time of 19.59.02mins to achieve the girls’ 12 years age group qualifying standard.
Briggs will go on to compete in the 3km Open Water at National Championships and Gosling will contest the slightly shorter 2km Open Water event.
Elsewhere, Oliver Sorrell put together a strong 1,500m freestyle. He held a consistent pace throughout the swim, holding solid 42 second repetitions.
At just 11 years of age, Sorrell is showing great potential in his freestyle swimming and is building up valuable experience and knowledge of competing in a long course environment and at high level meets.
Ellisha Cookson blew away any opposition in her heat of the 1,500m freestyle – leading from the start through to the very end of the race. She swam excellent pace times of 36 seconds per 50 metres to stop the clock in 18.13.49mins.
Cookson was swimming the event with a view to posting a fast time to put her in contention to participate in the event at National Championships in early August.
With the national qualification window open for another four weeks, time will tell if she makes it with this excellent performance.
Anya Strickland and Beatrice Finch also took on the 1,500m freestyle.
With those two – as well as Gosling – all in the same heat, there was some strong South Lincs rivalry taking place.
Strickland got the better of her team-mates with a dominant display of swimming, taking the lead in the heat early on and never relinquishing it.
She stopped the clock in a time of 19.54.54mins, with Finch close behind her coming into the wall in 19.57.96mins and Gosling a close third.
In the shorter distance 800m event, Esther Skells produced a strong swim – holding a well paced race to stop the clock in a new long course personal best (PB) time of 9.52.07mins.
She was just marginally beaten by team-mate Daisy Rummery, who also set a new long course PB of 9.51.43mins.
Skells will be hoping to improve on her time at forthcoming Regional Championships where she will swim the event at Sheffield’s Ponds Forge.
Both Atticus Strickland and Luke Blanchard turned in good swims in the 800m freestyle. Once again the boys were both swimming this event long course for the first time.
Strickland swam to a time of 9.32.89, finding the event harder going long course than in a regular short course pool.
Blanchard had an excellent swim, holding a solid pace throughout to touch the wall in a PB 9.20.23mins.
