The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
An amazing 21 medals and a host of personal best (PB) times were clocked by South Lincs Competitive Swimming Club members at the Team Luton March Open meet.
This was an early season long course competition providing lots of experience for the Spalding-based club’s swimmers – as well as an opportunity to post times in the qualification window for the National Championships.
Over the course of the weekend the club swimmers bagged ten gold, six silver and five bronze medals to round off an excellent weekend of swimming.
Emma Croker had an exceptional weekend of swimming both in terms of the times that she posted and her successful medal haul.
Competing in the girls’ 14 years age group, Croker swam to gold medals in four of her events. Showing her prowess over the sprint distances, she produced excellent times in both the 50m and 100m freestyle – posting 27.85secs seconds and 1.00.90mins respectively.
In addition, Croker also took gold in the 200m freestyle with a new long course PB time of 2.13.16 mins.
In the 50m butterfly, she produced not only the winning time of 29.56secs for her age group, but the fastest swim of the competition winning the final heat from lane eight.
Just for good measure, Croker added a silver medal in the 100m butterfly with another long course PB time of 1.09.77mins.
Meanwhile, Ellisha Cookson made it a hat-trick of gold medals and long course PB times over the course of the weekend.
Competing in the girls’ 15 years age group, she showed her abilities as an all-round swimmer by taking gold in both the 400m and 200m Individual Medley.
Cookson swam strongly in the longer distance event across all the strokes to finish in a new long course personal best time of 5.17.13mins.
In the shorter distance, Cookson swam strongly through the fly and back sections of the race, but demolished the opposition in the breaststroke section – allowing her to romp home to victory in the freestyle leg in a time of 2.29.88mins.
Cookson also took gold in the 200m butterfly with a very strong performance to post a further PB time of 2.30.92mins.
For good measure, she added a bronze medal to her haul in the 100m breaststroke with another long course PB of 1.19.00mins.
Another on-song performer was Mollie Briggs, who claimed double gold in the girls’ 14 years age group.
In her preferred distance freestyle events she produced some outstanding swims.
On Saturday, Briggs competed in the 800m freestyle and led her heat from the start without any competitor being able to get near her. She also swam to a huge new PB of 9.38.12mins.
She then turned her attention to the shorter distance 400m freestyle on Sunday – and once again sped into an early lead that could not be matched by her competitors.
That allowed Briggs to stop the clock in another big new personal best time of 4.40.65mins.
Nitesh Anbazhagan had a strong weekend of performances posting numerous new PB times.
However his strongest performances came in his preferred breaststroke events.
Competing in the boys’ 13 years age group, Anbazhagan swept to the gold medal in the 50m breaststroke on Saturday with a new personal best time of 35.52 seconds.
On the Sunday Nitesh was back in medal winning form, this time on the 100m breaststroke where he collected the silver medal with yet another personal best time of 1.20.46mins.
Isobel Gosling also had a very successful weekend in the girls’ 12 years age group, collecting four medals.
Gosling continued her fine form in the 200m Butterfly event, swimming this event for the first time in a long course pool, Isobel produced an excellent race to post a time of 2.44.88mins and claim the silver medal.
In the shorter distance 100m Butterfly Isobel once again swam to a medal, this time bronze, in a brilliant new PB time of 1.15.38mins.
There were further medals for Gosling in the freestyle events. In the 400m freestyle, Gosling took the silver medal with a new PB time of 5.03.29 mins. He also collected a bronze medal in the shorter distance 200m freestyle with a new long course PB time of 2.27.06mins.
There were also medals for Anya Strickland. In the girls’ 13 years age group 800m freestyle she collected the silver medal in a new long course PB of 10.19.52mins.
Edward Skells swam a strong 400m Individual Medley to collect the bronze medal in the boys 15 years age group.
Skells used his strength in the backstroke and breaststroke section to get right back into the race after the fly section and move into a medal position with a time of 5.25.47mins.
Daisy Rummery collected silver in the girls’ 15 years age group 400m freestyle setting a new long course PB of 4.49.77mins.
Team-mate Aurinija Maliauskaite also produced her fastest-ever 200m freestyle in this age group to claim bronze in a time of 2.14.77mins.
