Fourteen Fins’ swimmers travelled to the Excite Centre in Bathgate last Saturday to compete in the Bathgate Sprints, all events being contested over 50m. The meet attracted a large entry from various parts of Scotland including a team from Fort William.
Once again it was a successful day for Fins’ swimmers who had 43 individual swims and six of the swimmers qualified for a second swim in 15 finals, which resulted in 3 gold, 1 silver, and 3 bronze medals. There were also 2 – 4th, 5 – 5th, and 1 – 6th placings.
The swimmers recorded a total of 34 PBs which is a very acceptable 79% improvement rate, and there were four changes to the all-time top 50 rankings.
Top swimmer in terms of achievement was Lillian Blair, 8 to 10 years girls, who won both her swims namely, butterfly and backstroke. The other gold was won by sister Irys, 11/12 girls, in the backstroke. Irys also won silver in the freestyle and was 5th in both the butterfly and breaststroke. Blair Wardlaw, 15/o boys, won bronze in the breaststroke, was 4th in the backstroke and 5th in both butterfly and freestyle. Ethan Pate 11/12 boys won bronze in the butterfly, where he was the fastest 11 year old, and was 5th in breaststroke, 7th in freestyle and 9th in backstroke. Wiktor Bak, won the remaining bronze in the butterfly and was 6th in the freestyle. Millie Whytock, 8 to 10 girls, in her first competitive swim, just missed out on a medal in her backstroke by 0.56 seconds, finishing in 4th place. Millie also finished 9th in the butterfly, but was fastest 9 year old in both events. The remaining results were: Caleb Gray, 11/12 boys, 7th – butterfly; 10th – breaststroke; 11th – backstroke; and 16th – freestyle. Ayva Mellon, 11/12 girls, 8th – freestyle; 10th – butterfly; 12th – backstroke; and 29th – breaststroke. Grace Wilson, 15/o girls, 8th – freestyle; 14th in both the butterfly and backstroke Jennifer Gordon, 15/o girls, 9th in both butterfly and freestyle; 12th – backstroke. Sadie Paton, 8 to 10 girls, 10th – backstroke; 11th – butterfly. Medeea-Miriam Gorea, 13/14 girls, 13th – butterfly; 19th in both backstroke and freestyle. Jakub Boguski, 11/12 boys, another swimmer in his first competitive swim, 15th – backstroke; 17th – freestyle. Eva Watson, 11/12 girls, 32nd – butterfly; 37th – breaststroke; 42nd – freestyle.The swimmers who reduced their times by 2, or more, seconds were: Irys, who reduced her butterfly by 10.41 seconds, and her backstroke by 2.00 seconds. Jennifer, who reduced her butterfly by 8.04 seconds. Lillian, who reduced her butterfly by 6.05 seconds, and her backstroke by 4.28 seconds. Grace, who reduced her backstroke by 5.75 seconds Eva, who reduced her butterfly by 3.97 seconds Ayva, who reduced her butterfly by 2.60 seconds and, Sadie, who reduced her butterfly by 2.54 seconds.
I wonder if the coaches have been concentrating on butterfly.at the moment and possibly backstroke.
The top placing in the all-time Fins’ top 50 rankings was achieved by Grace, with a 0.11 second PB in her freestyle, who moves up two places from 37th to 35th, so the time require to gain entry to the rankings remains at 31.09 seconds. The remaining three changes were all new entries and the highest of those was achieved by Jennifer who enters in 37th place in the butterfly. This means that Emily Paterson, whose time was recorded at the Fife Leagues in September 2013, now drops out, and the new entry time is 34.63 seconds. Jennifer also gained the next highest entry position at 42nd, achieved due to a 0.44 second PB in the freestyle. Again, we must lose a swimmer from the rankings and this time it was Stephanie Campbell, who recorded her time at the Dunedin Meet in September 2012. The new entry time is stated above. The final entry was achieved by Irys in the backstroke entering in 46th place and the swimmer to drop out is Jennifer Gordon, who did not swim the backstroke at Bathgate, but set her time at the Fife Leagues in September this year. I am sure this will be just a temporary position and the time Jennifer, or any other swimmer, must beat to return to the rankings is 36.40 seconds.
