Southwold Swimming Club

A good night swimming was had at the Val Ross Memorial Gala hosted by Sesvernside Tritons at Horfield. Teams competing were Severnside Tritons, Keynsham, Soundwell, Bristol Henleaze, Southwold, Dursley & Bristol North. The age groups were 9s, 11U, 13U and Open so the focus of the gala was really at the younger swimmer ages. With all races at least 50m long it was going to be a challenge for the 9 year old swimmers, especially Butterfly!

We got off to a reasonable start through the first set of relays with no wins but plenty of 2nds and 3rds and were lying in 4th place on 31 points behind Severnside, Keynsham and Bristol Henleaze.

The next section to event 20 was good for us and it started off with 2 wins in the open 200IMs. With Bethan Tomlinson and Jacob Graham swimming well and Jacob notching up a 3 second PB. We had a number of strong swims with wins for Aidan Loughnane (11) in the 100 Breaststroke and Bethan(16) again in the 100 Freestyle. By this point we had leapt into second place with 107 points with Severnside winning on 113 points. Keynsham were close behind on 103 and Bristol Henleaze dropped back a bit on 78 Points.

By event 30 it was clear that Severnside were constantly inching ahead and had reached 173 points but it was neck and neck with us and Keynsham both on 155 points. Only 1 win in that section for Henry Bennett (11) in the 100 Free.

Just before the last set of relays, at event 42, we were still hanging on to Keynsham and only 3 points behind on 208.  Wins had been hard to come by but we did get success with Henry Bennett(11) again in the 100 Backstroke and Rebecca Lowther (9) in the the 50 Fly with a 3 second PB and just 0.5 seconds shy of a club record. Ashley Case (19) also gained a win in the 100 Breaststroke with a 1:11.48 swim.

So, all down to the last set of relays. We got a win in the boys 11U Freestyle relay (Henry Bennett, Aidan Loughnane, Ben Palmer, Michael Holden) and with 1 race to , the Cannon, we were on equal points with Keynsham. We swam really well but the Cannon was won by Severnside in 2:01.13, unfortunately Keynsham got the second place in 2:01.32 and we were 3rd in 2:02.48. That pushed Keysham into second place  1 point ahead and we ended up in 3rd.

Final Points

It was great to see the young swimmers doing so well and enjoying the racing. Thanks to the chaperones, coaches and other helps. I think it is likely the gala will run again next year so be prepared.

The times should now be on Hy Tek and here are our swim results by race.

Keith