Firstly I would like to thank all the swimmers who were willing to represent the county at Sheffield on Sunday. I believe that competing at a National meet for the county should be viewed as a real achievement by all the clubs and parents. This is a huge meet with the cream of British swimming talent on show. Our result of 13th in division 2 and 5 points behind 12th place can only be described as excellent (to my knowledge the highest the county has been is 12th). There were many very positive swims and some excellent PBs which was brilliant. Had we had all our swimmers available for selection for this gala we would have equalled 12th place comfortably and put a good claim in for 11th. This should be an aim going forward, to break the top 10 and have all swimmers available as we can take a squad of 30 swimmers.
I know that some of the younger swimmers found the day quite tough, which is why we have chosen swimmers on rankings rather than club PBs, as the experience gained when competing at open meets is very valuable. If there are any swimmers who do not appear on the Shropshire rankings could the clubs and parents ensure that this is corrected so that we do not miss out swimmers when selecting the team.
We again took some swimmers who only competed in relays, these swimmers are a very important component of any successful team (ask Chris Harbour who swam 1 relay for his new county). So I feel they deserve a very special mention as they are true team players, and if the county is to progress we need to be more competitive in our selection and will need the backing of clubs and parents alike.
Finally the development group is having difficulty with arrangements for the January development day so any club/swimmer who wanted to swim at the Crystal meet on the 10th of January should go ahead and if we can secure a suitable coach and pool time we will use the 9th or arrange another date.
Thank you from myself, Danny, Catherine and Steve for your support - please see below for the results with splits and times kindly recorded by Steve, the first few races had computer problems which is why there are no reaction times.
David Burford |
