South East Regional Championships Success for Megan

Written by David Begg. Posted in Uncategorized

Three weekends of regional swimming championships began at the K2 in Crawley last weekend with the Age Group Championships. With the new ASA rule changes qualifying has been much tougher this year and in order to gain qualification your times had to be ranked in the top 19 swimmers in the region. There were two swimmers from Isle of Wight Swim Team, Megan King and Abigail Lacey, and four swimmers from West Wight Swimming Club, Grace Poynter, Joseph Franks, Louis Herbert and Eric Tasca. Megan King was the only medallist from the weekend and swam a fantastic personal best in the 14 year olds 50m Backstroke in a time of 32.25sec to gain a silver medal in her first ever regional championships. Megan also made the final in the 50m Freestyle event finishing seventh overall and achieving a new personal best in the heats of 28.95 sec. Megan will hopefully be carrying this form through to the Island Games as she is the youngest selected member of the team.

Also making finals and along the way gaining new personal bests were Joseph Franks and Louis Herbert in the 14 year old boys’ category. Both made the final of the 50m Butterfly and Louis pipped Joseph to record a new personal best time of 29.84 sec to finish sixth while Joseph finished seventh in a new personal best time of 29.91 sec. Louis also competed in the 100m Butterfly event finishing 12th in a new personal best time of 1.08.94sec whilst Joseph competed in the 50m Backstroke event and finished 18th.

Also competing in the boys 14 year old category was Eric Tasca in the 50m Breaststroke who has had a fantastic season to qualify for his first ever South East Regional Championships and once again gained a personal best time of 36.44 sec to finish 14th overall. In the 13 years category both Grace Poynter and Abigail Lacey competed, with Abigail the busiest swimmer over the weekend. Abi made finals in the 200m freestyle, 50m Freestyle and 200m Backstroke events with her best finish 6th in the 50m Freestyle event in a new personal best time of 29.95 sec. Grace competed in the 50m, 100m and 200m breaststroke events with her best result being 11th in the 100m event. The championships continue next weekend at the Mountbatten centre in Portsmouth for the Relay and distance events and then return to Crawley the following weekend for the youth events.

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Coaches get a taste of their own Medicine

Written by David Begg. Posted in Uncategorized

Coaches get a taste of their own Medicine.

Congratulations to Gav and Ian on taking part in yet another Tough Mudder event at Henley-on Thames on Saturday.

Taking a rest from putting the swimmers through their paces both of them took part in an event which is known for some very serious challenges and as you can see from the picture, it is more than just a few chin ups and a run round the field.

As you can see the new ‘lighter weight’ Gav led the way, with Ian following on.

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Records continue to fall at final weekend of Isle of Wight Championships

Written by David Begg. Posted in Uncategorized

Records continue to fall at final weekend of Isle of Wight Championships

The 2015 Isle of Wight Swimming Championships concluded with the second and final weekend at Medina Leisure Centre with the 100m and 200m Freestyle and 100m Butterfly events. The Championships have been have been a huge success for both Seaclose and West Wight Swimming Clubs with 8 new championships records set and from 266 entries a total of 133 personal best performances.

A further four records were broken this weekend with Abigail Lacey, 13, leading the way in 13-14 year age group and breaking both the 100m and 200m records. Abi broke Lottie James’ 2014 record in the 100m freestyle by recording a new record time of 1min 01.94 sec and to follow this she broke a 15 year old record in the 200m freestyle, previously held by K Eldridge , when she recorded a championship best time of 2 min 13.97 sec. This gave Abi three new records for the championship and tied her with Lottie James for the most records broken over the two weekends.

Also in record breaking form were two West Wight Swimming Club Island Games Team Members, Sam Tinson-Wood and Annalise Jerram. Sam in the 19 and over section broke his own record from last year of 53.80 when he recorded a new 100m Freestyle record of 53.21 sec in the fastest time of the championships. Annalise had a very close race with her sister Bethany in the 100m Butterfly but pipped her on the touch to take gold and a new championship time of 1.09.47 sec in the 19 year and over category, previously held by Rosie Gard.

There were many outstanding performances over the two weekends but special mentions should go to Mia Stillwell of Seaclose Swimming Club who in the 10 year old category took all six gold medals available as did James Stirling of Seaclose Swimming Club in the 17-18 years category.

The overall points trophy for performances over the two weekends for top individual performer in each age group were as follows:

Girls Boys

10 Year Olds Mia Stillwell SSC / Harry Poynter WWSC

11-12 Year Olds Grace Bolland SSC / Frank Morrison SSC

13-14 Year Olds Abigail Lacey SSC / Louis Herbert WWSC

15-16 Year Olds Lelayna Blacklock SSC / Jake Williams WWSC

17-18 Year Olds Emily Kral SSC / James Stirling SSC

19 year and over Annalise Jerram WWSC / Dan Jones WWSC

The swimmers now move onto the South East Regional championships which start May 15th and the Island Games squad members continue their training for the event in Jersey at the end of June.

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Quiz Night

Written by David Begg. Posted in Social

All club members are invited to a QUIZ NIGHT to be held at West Wight Leisure Centre with the specific aim of raising funds to send our team of swimmers to compete in Jersey this July at the NatWest Island Games.

The Quiz Night will be held on 16th May in the Youth Club Room at West Wight Leisure Centre and your quiz master will be Mr Paul Critchley with questions by Mr Mac Herbert.

Please get together with family and friends and come along with a team of up to 6 players at a cost of £20 per team and have a fun evening with a prize for the winning team. There will also be a small raffle on the night. Refreshments will be available.

If you would like to attend please email bengard@ymail.com so that we can pass on numbers to Tim Blackman, Island Games Swimming Team Manager to ensure there are adequate provisions.

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Zac’s Success achieves invite to GB Squad.

Written by David Begg. Posted in Uncategorized

30th March

Zac’s Success achieves invite to GB Squad.

Zac Lacey 14, competed at The Down Syndrome European Swimming Championships at The Quays in Southampton over the weekend of 28th and 29th of March. The event had representatives from Scotland, Ireland, Estonia, Spain, Sweden, Russia and Brazil.

The Isle of Swim Team Member had a very successful weekend swimming in five individual events and also competing in the relay event. Zac can now say he is European Champion at the 25m Backstroke event when he produced the fastest time of the day for the event in a new personal best time of 21.22 sec. Zac then went onto produce a personal best in the 100m individual medley (1 min 50.41 sec).

Zac was also selected to swim in the England junior relay team (200m freestyle relay) which did extremely well as the only under 16 team to make the final and the four swimmers did exceptionally well to finish fifth against more established international teams.

Zac’s performance over the weekend was recognised by the Great Britain Down Syndrome Swimming Team coach and Zac has been invited to attend a Great Britain Training Camp in Batley, Yorkshire at the end of April which will hopefully be the start of bigger things to come.

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