The Fife Swimming Leagues made a welcome return last Sunday for the first time in over two years, when the first round (of four) Fife League and the Fife Novice League took place at the Michael Woods Centre in Glenrothes. Eight Fife clubs competed in a revised version of the leagues where each club are allowed to enter up to three swimmers per event, with the swimmers allowed to compete in a maximum of two individual swims, plus relays.
Fins had a total of 36 swimmers competing, 28 in the league, swimming in a total 50 swims, and 8 in the novice league with a total of 15 swims. The club enjoyed another extremely successful day with Erin Taylor continuing to rewrite Fins’ record book. In the league the swimmers recorded 10 – 1st; 10 – 2nd; 4 – 3rd; and 21 further top 8 placings. The 50 swims produced 47 PBs which is an outstanding 94% improvement rate. Because there had been no leagues for over two years the novice swimmers were all swimming competitively for the first time, so all their swims were PBs, and they achieved 3 – 1st; 3 – 2nd; 3 – 3rd; and 4 further top 8 placings.
Fins’ top swimmer in the league was Erin Taylor, 15 and over girls, who had two wins. Erin won the 200m individual medley in a time of 2 minutes 21.43 seconds giving her a 3.22 second PB and a new club short course record, reducing the previous record, set by Sarah Chapman at the Scottish National Short Course Championships in January 2009, by 0.87 seconds.
Erin also won the 100m butterfly in a time of 1 minute 5.15 seconds which moves her up to 2nd place in the club rankings and just 0.52 seconds away from yet another club record.
The other winners were:
Adam Selbie, 8 to 12 years boys, 1st in both the 200m freestyle and 100m butterfly.
Mark Scott, 15 and over boys, 1st in both the 200m individual medley and 100m butterfly.
Steven Pate, 15 and over boys, 1st in the 200m breaststroke and 2nd in the 100n breaststroke.
Blair Wardlaw, 15 and over boys, 1st in the 100m backstroke and 2nd in the 50m butterfly
Heidi Mellon, 15 and over girls, 1st in the 200m breaststroke and 3rd in the 100m breaststroke.
Roman Johnston, 8 to 12 years boys, 1st in the 50m breaststroke and 4th in the 100m breaststroke.
Fins Mixed 12 and under 4x50m freestyle relay team of Adam Selbie, Ethan Pate; Irys Blair and Ayva Mellon won their event, while the Mixed 15 and over 4x50m freestyle relay team of Mark Scott, Blair Wardlaw, Erin Taylor and Heidi Mellon had to settle for 2nd place.
There were some excellent PBs throughout the day but none that compares with Alastair Gordon’s PB in the 13/14 years boys, 50m butterfly. Alastair had not swum the event since March 2019 but even so a 44.66 second PB over 50m is incredible.
In addition to the above the full League results for Fins’ swimmers were:
Ethan Pate, 8 to 12 boys, 2nd in both the 200m individual medley and 50m butterfly
Irys Blair, 8 to 12 girls, 2nd – 100m butterfly; 3rd – 200m individual medley
Charlotte Wardlaw, 13/14 girls, 2nd – 100m breaststroke; 5th – 50m butterfly
Ellen McLaughlin, 15/O girls, 2nd – 50m freestyle; 6th – 100m backstroke
Alastair Gordon, 13/14 boys, 2nd – 50m butterfly; 6th – 10m backstroke
Grace Wilson, 15/O girls, 2nd – 50m butterfly; 7th – 100m freestyle
Ayva Mellon, 8 to 12 girls, 2nd – 100m freestyle
Caleb Gray, 8 to 12 boys, 3rd in both the 50m and 100m backstroke
Ciaran Burns, 15/O boys, 4th – 50m breaststroke; 5th – 100m breaststroke
Kimberley McCabe, 15/O girls, 4th – 50m breaststroke; 5th – 200m freestyle
Jennifer Gordon, 15/O girls, 4th – 50m backstroke; 8th – 100m freestyle
Blake Goldie, 13/14 boys, 4th – 50m backstroke
John Miller, 13/14 boys, 4th – 50m butterfly
Campbell Rae, 13/14 boys, 5th in both the 100m backstroke and 100m breaststroke
Grant Wardlaw, 15/O boys, 5th – 50m backstroke; 7th – 100m freestyle
Sarah Urquhart, 8 to 12 girls, 5th – 50m freestyle; 11th – 50m backstroke
Callan McComiskie, 13/14 boys, 6th in both the 100m breaststroke and 100m freestyle
Abby Morris, 13/14 girls, 6th – 50m backstroke; 7th – 50m freestyle
Sofia Simeniuc,13/14 girls, 9th – 100m freestyle
Eva Watson, 8 to 12 girls, 10th – 50m backstroke
Medeea-Miriam Gorea, 11th – 100m backstroke
From the League results there were seven changes to the all-time top 50 short course rankings and they were achieved by:
Erin who moves from 4th to 1st in the 200m individual medley, and from 3rd to 2nd in the 100m butterfly.
Blair who moves from 31st to 19th in the 100m backstroke and enters the rankings in 34th place in the 50m butterfly
Steven moves from 39th to 37th in the 100m breaststroke
Grace enters the rankings in 38th place in the 50m butterfly
Kimberley enters the rankings in 50th place in the 50m breaststroke.
The three entries means that the person who was in 50th place drops out and we say goodbye, respectively, in those particular events to David Smith who recorded his
time at the Fife League in November 1989; Lindsay McDermid who recorded her time at Carnegie in October 1988; and Nicola Sneddon who recorded her time at Glenrothes in October 1998.
It was good to see the younger swimmers in the Novice League competing in their first competitive swim, and now they have times for some events we can look forward to seeing them improve over the next few years. However, they did get off to a promising start in the Novice League
.
Two of the winners also gained a 2nd placing and they were Lillian Blair, 8 to 10 years girls, who won the 25m freestyle and was 2nd in the 50m breaststroke; and Taylor Deacon, 11/12 girls, who won the 50m breaststroke and was 2nd in the 25m backstroke. The other winner was Olivia Mroczkiewiicz, 11/12 girls, who won the 25m freestyle. Olivia also finished 5th in the 50m freestyle.
The other 2nd place went to Jessica Christie, 8 to 10 girls. Jessica also finished 7th in the 50m backstroke.
Sadie Paton, 8 to 10 girls, gained two 3rd placings in the 25m freestyle and 25m butterfly and the remaining 3rd placing went to Logan Davidson, 11/12 boys. Logan also finished 11th in the 50m freestyle
The remaining two swimmers were:
Samuel Dick, 8 to 10 boys who was 4th in the 25m Backstroke, and 6th in the 25m freestyle.
Rachel Harris, 8 to 10 girls finished 11th in the 25m backstroke.
Well done to all the swimmers who competed at the leagues and good luck in the next round. Please remember the only person you are trying to better is yourself.