With no competitions last weekend there is an opportunity to highlight another event in ‘Pathway to the Top’.
Two weeks ago, I attended the Kirkcaldy and Central Fife Sports Council Awards evening where Erin Taylor won the Youth Award and the Sports Personality of the Year Award, which reflects, her hard work, dedication, and determination to succeed and hopefully she will continue the Pathway to the Top for quite a while longer, and I also hope a few more Fins’ swimmers will follow in her footsteps.
Another interesting feature of the evening was the guest speaker, Paul Noble, MBE, who described his pathway to the top from a young disability swimmer, at Glenrothes, all the way to representing Great Britain, at the Paralympics, on five separate occasions, and now commentates for BBC and Channel 4, mainly on disability swimming.
So, those with their ambitions in the rankings have quite a bit of improving to do just to get to the top of Fins’ all time rankings. That said, the current squads are relatively young, with a few exceptions, and there are no age groups in the rankings.
The current female 800m freestyle record is held by Nicola Lamb with a time of 9 minutes 0.54 seconds, achieved at the East District Age Group Championships in November 2012.
Only two girls in the current squads feature in the ranking and they are Kimberley McCabe who is in 42nd place with a time of 11 minutes 29.20 seconds set at the Fife Distance Meet, Feb 2022, and it is good to see one of the younger swimmers making it into the top 50 – Irys Blair who is in 44th place with a time of 11 minutes 43.78 seconds, also set at the Fife Distance Meet, Feb 2022.
Those swimmers aspiring to enter the top 50 for the 800m freestyle need to beat a time of 13 minutes 19.32 seconds.
It is much easier to enter the boys 800m freestyle rankings, just turn up, complete the course and you are in. Currently there are only 18 swimmers in the rankings for this event, but again it is good to see one of the younger swimmers in there. That is Adam Selbie, who is in 13th place with a time of 10 minutes 6.37 seconds which he recorded at the Swim West Lothian Distance Meet in October 2022.
The current record holder is a former Scottish International swimmer, and current Head Coach at Fins, Ian Lewis, whose time of 8 minutes 25.46 seconds was set, way back long before any of the current squad membership was born, in December 1985 at Carnegie.
‘Labore et Scientia’ – through hard work and understanding.
Ken White
Club Press Officer