The Scottish Summer Meet was held at Aberdeen Sports Village from 13th to 16th July 2023. This was the final age group event of the 2023 long course season and the five Fins’ swimmers taking part had an excellent four days. Heats were held in the morning and afternoon with the top 10 swimmers in each event progressing to the finals in the evening.
Three Fins’ swimmers managed to progress to seven finals, plus a top 10 finish in the 1500m freestyle, which was a heat declared winner event, and just missed out on another four, finishing as either 1st or 2nd reserve for the final. The swimmers competed in a total of 21 swims recording 14 PBs.
Left to Right in the Photo is Ethan, Adam, Steven, and Erin. Jonathan is missing from the photo
Top swimmer for Fins was Erin Taylor, 17/18 years girls, who won two gold medals in the 200m individual medley and the 50m breaststroke. In the 200m individual medley she beat her long-time rival Nula Gow, of Garioch, in a very exciting race with both swimmers taking the lead at various stages. Erin was ahead by 0.30 seconds after the butterfly leg, but Nula pulled this back to lead by 0.93 seconds in the backstroke, Erin then turned it around in an excellent breaststroke leg to lead by 0.42 seconds and in the final freestyle leg she just managed to hold on to win by just two one hundredths of a second. Erin’s time of 1 minute 24.12 seconds was a new Fins long course club record which reduced her previous record time by 0.83 seconds which was set at the Scottish Summer meet in 2022.
Her 50m breaststroke win was much more straight forward with her winning margin just short of 1 second.
She also made the final of the 100m butterfly where she finished in 6th place.
Erin was ineligible to swim in her two best events the 100m and 200m breaststroke as she has a qualifying time for the British Summer Championships.
The next highest placed finalist was Jonathan Cumming Cummings, 15 years boys, who was 6th in the 50m breaststroke; 9th in the 200m breaststroke; and was 1st reserve for the final of the 100m breaststroke. Jonathan had a very creditable improvement of 7.56 seconds in his 200m breaststroke considering that his previous best was recorded just two weeks ago.
The remaining finalist was Adam Selbie, 12/13 years boys, who was 7th in the 200m backstroke; 9th in the 200m individual medley; and 9th in the 1500m freestyle. Adam also finished 11th in the 800m freestyle, which was also a heat declared winner event, and was 2nd reserve for the 100m butterfly final.
Adam improved his 800m freestyle time by 11.24 seconds
Ken White,
Club Press Officer