Double delight for Pershore swimmers
02 Jul 2012
Double delight for Pershore swimmers
Pershore Swimming Club, enjoying one of their most successful ever seasons, added more county titles at the weekend at the Worcestershire County Relay Championship held at Gloucester. The young team managed two first places, 9 provisional County Qualifying times, 22 personal bests (pb) and a new County record.
Stars of the show were the boys 9-10 year olds who managed to bag two superb gold medals in the 4 x 50m freestyle and 4 x 50m medley relays against competition from all the big clubs in the County..
In the boys 9-10 year old 4 x 50m freestyle relay, William Gearey (9) gave the team a flying start in the first leg, recording 34.33 seconds and a new pb. Chris Vizard (10) then consolidated the lead in the second leg with a solid swim of 37.01, before handing over to Josh Sharratt (10) who extended the team's lead with a tremendous 35.00 leg also recording a new pb. Rising star of Pershore SC, Simon Sweatman (10) anchored the team to victory in a stunning time of 30.76 (another pb), with the team beating the rest of the field by nearly 25m. Their time of 2.16.89 beat the previous County record for the age group which had stood since 2004.
The boys made it a double win, taking gold in the 9-10 year old 4 x 50m medley relay in a thrilling race. Vizard led the team out in the backstroke, recording a time of 44.79 handing over in fourth place. Sweatman swimming his least strong breast stroke leg, recorded 47.5 seconds and managed to pull the team up to third, before handing over to Sharratt in the fly maintaining the team's third place with 38.52. It was left to young Gearey on the anchor leg not to let his team mates down. He flew off the blocks in chase of the leaders, soon clawing back the lead and with 25m to go, had pulled the team back into second. Gearey swam superbly on the last 25m, overtaking his rivals with 15m to go and recording a time of 34.02 (another pb) to give victory to Pershore, which if an official individual time would have put him up to UK top three.
The girls 9-10 year old team also put in strong performances and a string of pbs in their races. Missing three older swimmers, Pershore fielded a young, inexperienced team still proving they have much potential. Daisy Tolley, Isobel Cumming, Naomi Marsden and Charlotte Downey all recorded PBs in both the 4 x 50m freestyle and 4 x 50m medley relays.
Elsewhere within the team, although the 13-14 year old girls struggled against very strong opposition, there were a host of pbs including Katie Sharratt (freestyle and fly), Elizabeth Vizard (freestyle), Ella Spencer (freestyle) and for the 13-14 year old boys, there were pb's for Angus Jones, Alex Palin, Jake Spencer and Michael Evans. Owen Leeks, Joseph Doyle and Jack Betteridge all recorded pb's as part of the 11-12 year old boys free and medley relay teams.Tim Gearey photo