The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
A team of 34 from South Lincs Competitive Swimming Club claimed an amazing 97 medals at the Rob Welbourn Open Meet last week.
The South Holland swimmers put on an excellent weekend of performances in the Deepings – picking up many new personal best (PB) times, as well as achieving county qualifying standards.
Nine-year-old Frank Lamb rocketed to gold medals in the 50m and 100m freestyle events with new PB times of 37.87secs and 1.24.86mins respectively.
He added a gold medal in the 50m backstroke with another PB of 42.20secs and also in the 50m breaststroke in yet another PB of 50.55 secs.
There were another four medals for Lamb over the course of the weekend as he claimed three silver medals in the 50m butterfly, 100m backstroke and 100m breaststroke and a bronze in the 100m IM.
South Lincs enjoyed further success in the boys’ 9/10 years age group with Luke Sorrell collecting seven medals.
He swam to gold in the 100m butterfly with a PB time of 1.59.49mins, while also claiming silver medals in both the 200m backstroke and the 200m freestyle events.
He also picked up four bronze medals, with a PB in the 100m breaststroke (1.58.50mins) the highlight.
Aidan Evans produced some excellent swims in the boys 9/10 years age group and claimed silver medals behind his team mates in the 100m butterfly in a new PB of 2.21.21mins and then again in the 50m backstroke with another PB of 47.03secs.
He added a bronze medal in the 50m butterfly (PB of 57.45secs) too.
Nathan Hyden added to the medal bonanza in the boys’ 9/10 years age group by collecting four bronze medals over the weekend – all in PB times.
They came in the 50m freestyle (41.16secs), 200m freestyle (3.29.49mins) and 100m breaststroke (1.58.50mins) and 200m breaststroke (4.08.18mins).
The girls were well represented in the 9/10 years age group, with Erin Siggee taking two medals in her preferred breaststroke events. Over the 50m sprint distance Erin set a new PB time of 49.42secs and claimed the bronze medal.
She was back on the medal podium in the 200m breaststroke (3.55.48mins, PB) to take the silver medal.
Sophie Wilson also achieved a podium finish in the 9/10 years age group collecting a silver medal in the 100m backstroke in a new PB time of 1.37.91mins.
Olivia Bland, Zara-Jayne Odell, Josie Russell, William Vere and Isobel Walker all competed in the 9/10 years age group and produced excellent swims, registering big new PB times.
In the 11/12 years group, Nitesh Anbazhagan collected 14 medals from as many swims, all of which came in new PB times.
Among the haul were eight gold medals including a sweep of the breaststroke events – the 50m, 100m and 200m distances.
Team mate Dziugas Baziliauskas collected two bronze medals in the same age group – including a big new PB of over fourteen seconds in the 200m breaststroke.
Beatrice Finch collected five medals over the course of the competition, despite electing to compete in her less favoured events.
She took gold in the 200m breaststroke with an 11-second PB (3.14.73mins) and, in the 100m freestyle, lowered her PB significantly to 1.09.90mins.
To round of her medal haul, Finch picked up bronze medals in the 100m breaststroke, 100m IM and 200m IM.
Also in the 11/12 years age group, Charlotte Ciuberkyte collected a hat-trick of medals in the breaststroke events.
Ciuberkyte took silver in both the 100m and 200m breaststroke events in new PB times of 1.32.41mins and 3.25.42mins respectively.
She added bronze in the 50m breaststroke to her collection in PB of 41.92secs, then claimed bronze in the 50m freestyle with yet another PB of 33.24secs.
Isobel Gosling was also a medal winner in the 11/12 years age group and clocked PBs. She struck bronze in the 200m freestyle (2.42.78mins) and then repeated this in the 200m breaststroke (3.27.82mins).
Her outstanding swim of the weekend came in the 200m butterfly, where a very strong performance on her debut saw her take bronze in 3.10.07mins.
In the girls’ 13/14 years age group, South Lincs enjoyed a clean sweep of the medals. The bronze medal went to Dusty Saines (2.39.47mins), the silver to Mollie Briggs in (2.38.26mins) and the gold to Ellisha Cookson in (2.35.12).
All three girls smashed the 2.40.00mins barrier for the first time and completely dominated the final heat from start to finish.
