The first round of the 2026 Fife Leagues and Novice Leagues were held at the Michael Woods Centre, Glenrothes, on 24 January 2026, and there was a very welcome first for Fins CSC in that for first time in 46 years the novice swimmers outnumbered the league swimmers, and I think it is fair to say that with the majority of the novice swimmers competing for their first time, they all did exceptionally well.
Because of the number of ‘new’ swimmers (and parents) it is probably useful repeating some information that has been mentioned before. Swimming is mainly an individual sport and swimmers need to focus on their own swimming. Do not let other swimmers influence your swimming whether it is in training or in competition. Remember that one of the purposes of training is to allow you to beat one person and that is yourself, do not concern yourself with what other swimmers are doing.
However, please do not think, that you will beat your previous time in any particular event, every, time you swim it, it doesn’t work like that, and please try not to be too disappointed when that happens. There could be many reasons why you didn’t improve on your personal best (PB).
Have a think about your swim and what you may have done differently, and please discuss your swim with your coach, s/he may have noticed something in your technique that can be improved.
It can take three to four years for a swimmer to be really competent and even then they can still improve.
Please be patient and enjoy your swimming and remember that not everyone can be World Champion, but you can try.
Over the club’s 46 years history they became the first Scottish club to produce a European Junior Champion, they also had a World deaf champion and record holder, and a Paralympic gold medallist in the Barcelona Games, and produced numerous international representatives at senior, youth, junior, and schools levels, and currently have the Scottish Aquatics Team Manager for the Commonwealth Games, to be held in Glasgow later this year.
However, back to the leagues and the league swimmers also had a successful day. The 23 league swimmers contested 45 swims, winning 15 plus 4 – 2nd, 9 – 3rd, and 15 further placings. In other words only two swims were outside the top 10 finishes.
9 swimmers recorded a win with 6 recording two wins. There was also a relay win and 8 swimmers made a difference to the Fins’ all-time top 50 rankings.
Because there were 6 double wins it is not really possible to choose top Fins’ swimmer. The details are:
Millie Whytock, 13/14 female, 1st in the 200m backstroke and 100m butterfly. Millie also recorded the largest PB from a Fins’ swimmer of 7.84 seconds in her 200m backstroke, which also results in her moving from 45th to 18th in the Fins’ top 50 rankings. Millie’s second swim, the 100m butterfly also produced a PB of2.13 seconds and moves her from 38th to 29th in the rankings.
Kristin Mackay, 15/O female, 1st in the 200m and 400m freestyle. Kristin recorded a 2.66 second PB in her 200m freestyle which moves her from 19th to 12th in the rankings.
Irys Blair, 15/O female, 1st in the 50m and 200m backstroke. In her 200m backstroke Irys recorded a 2.58 second PB which means she moves from 28th to 22nd in the rankings, and in her 50m backstroke a 0.66 second PB means she moves from 20th to 15th.
Summer Ramshaw, 1st 50m butterfly and 50m backstroke. Summer recorded a 2.39 second PB in her 50m butterfly and a 1.48 second PB in her 50m backstroke but is just over 3 seconds short of the entry time for the top 50 rankings in both events.
Lilian Blair, 13/14 female, 1st 100m freestyle and 200m individual medley. Lilian recorded a 1.98 second
PB in her 200m individual medley and equalled her PB in the 100m freestyle. Her PB in the individual medley moves her from 18th to 15th in the rankings.
Elliot Blair, 8/12 years male, 1st in the 200m backstroke and 400m freestyle. Like Summer, Elliot is still a bit short on the entry times for the rankings, but getting there.
Lily-Mae McDonald, 8/12 female, 1st in the 50m backstroke and 3rd 200m freestyle. Lily-Mae is also short of the entry times for the rankings but the 3rd largest Fins’ PB of 6.91 seconds in her 200m freestyle goes a good way in closing the gap.
Chelsea Walker, 13/14 female, 1st in the 50m breaststroke and 3rd 100m backstroke with a good 5.00 second PB.
Cole Gray,13/14 male, 1st in the 400m freestyle and 4thin the 100m freestyle with a good 5.20 second PB
Jack Campbell, 13/14 male, 2nd in both the 100m freestyle and 100m butterfly. Jack recorded a goof 5.37 second PB in his 100m freestyle.
Caleb Gray, 15/O male, 2nd 400 freestyle and 3rd in the 200m freestyle. Caleb recorded a 4.28 second PB in his 400m freestyle to move him from 45th to 43rd in the rankings and although he recorded a PB in his 200m freestyle he is just over 5.5 seconds short of the entry time.
Kimberley McCabe, 15/O female, 2nd in the 50m breaststroke and 6th in the 50m backstroke.
Harvey Whytock, 15/O male, 3rd in both the 50m and 100m butterfly. Harvey enters the top 50 rankings in 47th place and the swimmer who has to drop out is Callum MacDonald who set his time at the Fife Schools Championships in November 2016. The time now required for entry is 3 minutes 16.52 seconds.
Sadie Paton, 13/14 female, 3rd in the 50m freestyle and 4th in the 100m breaststroke.
Bryony Smart, 13/14 female, 3rd in the 50m butterfly and 5th in the 50m freestyle. In her 50m butterfly Bryony recorded the second largest PB for a Fins’ swimmer of 7.04 seconds.
Ethan Pate, 15/O male, 3rd in the 50m freestyle and 5th in the 100m freestyle.
Samuel Murphy, 15/O male, 3rd in the 50m backstroke and 8th in the 100m freestyle.
Leyton Neilson, 13/14 male, 4th in the 50m freestyle and 8th in the 100m freestyle. Leyton recorded the 4th largest PB of 5.91 seconds in his 100m freestyle.
Jamie Hughes, 15/O male, 5th in the 50m breaststroke, and 7th in the 50m freestyle. Jamie recorded the 5th largest PB of 5.73 seconds in his 50m breaststroke.
Kaja Debska, 15/O female, 5th in the 50m freestyle.
Olivia Bak, 13/14 female, 6th in the 50m backstroke, and 18th in the 100m freestyle.
Eilidh Needham, 8/12 female, 8th in both the 50m breaststroke and 50m freestyle.
Chloe Arnold, 13/14 female, 8th in the 50m breaststroke and 12th in the 50m freestyle.
Individually, this can only be described as a very satisfactory session with all swimmers achieving at least an 8th place or better. However, there were also two relay events with Fins winning one and finishing 4th in the other.
The team of Cole, Jack, Lilian and Millie won the 13/14 years 4 x 50m mixed freestyle relay, while the team of Ethan, Harvey, Irys and Kristin finished 4th in the 15/O years 4 x 50m mixed freestyle relay.
Novice League
The novice league included 24 Fins’ swimmers who contested 48 swims. In the Fife Leagues swimmers are only allowed to compete in two events plus a relay. These 48 swims produced 7 – 1st places, 5 – 2nd places, 7 – 3rd places, plus a further 26 swims in the top 10. There was also a relay in which Fins finished in 3rd place.
The novice swimmers also achieved the same as the league swimmers in that all swimmers achieved an 8th place, or better, which is impressive considering the number of first time competitive swims. This is very encouraging for the club going forward.
There will not be the same amount of detail in the novice league report because there is very little swimmer history, although a few have competed before, and it will take some time for any swimmer to reach the times for the short course top 50 rankings.
Those swimmers competing for the first time have established a PB for the two events you swam in, so that is a start to your competitive history. Please do not expect to achieve an 8th place or better in any meet you swim at, this will depend on the level of the competition. For Fins’ swimmers the Fife Novice league will be the lowest level of competition but extremely important to get you started and for your early development, and Fife has some very competent swimmers.
Some swimmers will progress to club meets where the competition is likely to be a bit harder as it will not just be Fife swimmers you swim against but swimmers from clubs from various parts of Scotland, and sometime farther afield.
Some swimmers will progress to meets, usually District or National meets where you are required to achieve a qualifying time before you are allowed entry. However, all that is for another day, so back to the current time and the novice league.
Seven of the 48 swims were by swimmers who had competed before in a particular event and on two occasions failed to beat their PB, so along with all the new PBs 46 out of the 48 swims showed improvement giving a 96% improvement rate, which is excellent.
The was one double winner, Stanley Glass, 11/13 male, 1st – 25m freestyle and 25m breaststroke.
In addition the other five winners were:
Elizabeth Janovska, 11/13 female, 1st – 25 backstroke, 1st – 25 butterfly.
Lacey Barrett, 11/13 female, 1st – 100m freestyle, 3rd – 50m breaststroke.
Mark Sinilov, 11/13 male, 1st – 50m freestyle, 3rd – 50m backstroke.
Cain Gray, 8/10 male, 1st – 25m butterfly, 4th – 50 freestyle. Cain recorded the largest and 3rd largest PBs of Fins’ novice swimmers, reducing his 50m freestyle time by 11.50 seconds and his 25m butterfly by 7.83 seconds.
Logan Watson, 11/13 male, 1st – 25m backstroke, 5th – 50m breaststroke.
Finlay Smart, 11/13 male, 2nd – 50m breaststroke, 2nd – 50m freestyle.
Luke Gilhooley, 11/13 male, 2nd – 25m backstroke, 3rd – 50m freestyle. Luke recorded the 5th largest PB in his 50m freestyle of 5.01 seconds.
Isla MacLennan, 8/10 female, 2nd – 25m freestyle, 6th – 25m breaststroke.
Jessica Lee, 11/13 female, 3rd – 25m breaststroke, 4th – 25m freestyle.
Marie-Eliza Frazer, 11/13 female, 3rd – 25m freestyle, 5th – 25m breaststroke.
Abby Crawford, 8/10 female, 3rd – 25m breaststroke, 8th – 25m butterfly. Abby r educed her 25m breaststroke time by 1.31 seconds,
Sophia Swanson, 11/13 female, 3rd – 25m butterfly, 8th – 50m breaststroke.
Elliott Brook, 11/13 male, 4th in both the 25m breaststroke and 25m backstroke.
Amelia Dingwall, 11/13 female, 4th – 25m backstroke, 6th – 25m breaststroke.
Sophie McKinley, 11/13 female, 4th – 25m breaststroke, 9th 50m backstroke.
Grace Pereira, 11/13 female, 5th – 25m backstroke, 10th – 50 freestyle
Roland Leeuwenberg, 11/13 male, 6th – 100m freestyle, 10th – 50m backstroke.
Emily Livingstone, 8/10 female, 6th – 100m individual medley, 11th – 25m butterfly.
Emilia Needham, 8/10 female, 6th – 25m backstroke, 12th 50m backstroke.
Nina Dangul, 11/13 female, 7th – 50m freestyle, 9th -100m freestyle.
Ella Robertson, 8/10 female, 7th – 25m backstroke, 9th – 25m freestyle.
Madeline Scott, 8/10 female, 8th in both the 50m backstroke and 50m freestyle.
Ava-Liana Drummond, 11/13 female, 8th – 50m backstroke, 13th – 50m freestyle. Ava-Liana recorded the 2nd and 4th largest PBs by reducing her previous best in her 50m freestyle by 9.46 seconds and her 50m backstroke by 5.79 seconds.
In the 4 x 50m mixed freestyle relay the team that finished in 3rd place was Lacey, Luke, Mark, and Grace.
Well done again to all the novice swimmers and I look forward to your times reducing and your progress in competitive swimming.