The 100m Freestyle is the final event covered in ‘Pathway to the Top’ and is probably the most popular event in swimming.

In the girls’ section there are three members of the current squads, and two in the boys, who are in the Fins’ all-time top 50 rankings.

The highest ranked girl, in 13th place, is Erin Taylor with a time of 1 minute 1.47 seconds, and the other two girls are Kristen Mackay and Grace Wilson. Jennifer Gordon is less than a second outside the rankings with Irys Blair just under two seconds away,

The current club record is held by Nicola Lamb with a time of 58.72 seconds set at the Scottish National Short Course Championships in December 2013.

The time to beat to achieve a top 50 place is currently 1 minute 6.40 seconds.

The highest ranked boy, in 27th place, is Ben Lewis with a time of 56.77 seconds, and the other swimmer is Blair Wardlaw. Steven Pate is just 0.57 seconds outside the rankings with the next closest being Adam Selbie just under 4 seconds away.

The current club record is held by Greg Watson with a time of 51.22 seconds set at the Scottish National Short Course Championships in December 2014.

The time to beat to achieve a top 60 place is currently 58.98 seconds.

SWL Update

There were six PBs missed in the Swim West Lothian Distance Meet because I was working off the final results and realised that I hadn’t looked at the split times.

Although there were six actual PBs, from four swimmers, they will not appear in the official Scottish rankings.

The largest split PB was recorded by Eva in her 800m freestyle where her 400m split produced a 22.16 second PB and her time of 5 minutes 24.91would be the equivalent of 16th place in the Scottish rankings.

Eva also recorded a PB of 3.13 seconds at the 200m split and her time of 2 minutes 39.61 seconds would be the equivalent of 25th place in the Scottish rankings.

The next largest PB was achieved by Caleb at the 400m split in his 800m freestyle event. Caleb recorded an 8.36 second PB giving him a time of 5 minutes 31.92 seconds and is the equivalent of 13th in the Scottish rankings.

Next was Ethan, again at the 400m split in his 800m freestyle and Ethan’s 7.68 PB gave him a time of 5 minutes 15.80 seconds, which is the equivalent of 3rd place in the Scottish rankings and just one hundredth of a second short of 2nd place.

Last, but certainly not least was Kristen who had two unusual split PBs as they occurred at the 50m mark, but that is probably because my records for Kristen don’t record any 50m times since 2019. Kristen’s 50m split from her 800m freestyle swim was 2.11 seconds and her split at the 50m mark in her 400 individual medley was a 1.88 seconds PB in the butterfly. Unfortunately, neither swim would be in the top 25 of the Scottish rankings.

‘Labore et Scientia’ – through hard work and understanding.

From recent results it would certainly appear that the swimmers are working hard, as are the coaches.

Because there are so many aspects in swimming technique, the specificity of each stroke, and both the physical and mental aspects of competing, the understanding aspect is more difficult, but a good working relationship between the swimmers and coaches will go a long way in this respect.

Keep up the good work and let’s see some more current squad swimmers in the top 50 rankings.