Pershore at Last Wk/end of County Champs 2011

As so often before in the very first event it was Pershore's starlet medalist eleven year old Tazmin Pugh who set about winning more medals, coming home in a new pb of 5:05.03 in the 400m freestyle taking the silver medal leaving her 4^th in the UK end of year rankings. The next event was the heats of the boys 100m breaststroke with Tyler McLean (10) winning prime position for the finals in 1^st place in 1:30.41 (pb) and indeed later taking the gold medal in fine style and securing 1^st place in the UK 'end of his year' rankings out. Drew Jones (11) repeated his 4^th place in the heats in his age group finals in 1:33.52, whilst Harry Sykes (13) encouragingly improved his heat position to 5th place in 1:23.85.

In the 50m Freestyle heats Alison Seward (11); Pugh (11); Ella Spencer (12) and Ashley Gribble (13) joined the fray and all improved their pbs, Seward by 3 seconds to 33.35, Spencer to 33.78 and Gribble to 31.57.  In the end the only one to make the finals was Pugh and although swimming to a conservative new pb in 31.43 in the heats had obviously kept something back for the evening finals when swimming to another gold medal in 30.10 secured her second of this years Championship age group records and climbing to the top of  a strong 11 year old group of 3,000 competing girls in that event throughout the whole of the United Kingdom rankings.

For the boys Jones was joined in the 200m backstroke by Joseph Doyle (11) and Sykes coming in 7^th, 8^th and 12^th place respectively, with Jones finishing less than two seconds from a Midlands District Qualifying time (MQT).  Joining Callum Sanderson (10) in his first ever County Championships and swimming to a new pb of 36.99 in the 50m free heats were eventual finalists Doyle, Jones, McLean and Sykes with Jack Betteridge just missing out.  In the evening finals Doyle improved to 7^th place (33.96), Jones 6^th (33.78), whilst McLean set a new pb when securing 4^th place in 34.03.

Pugh's third medal of the first day came in the 200m Individual Medley (IM) when winning a bronze medal with club mate Seward gaining another pb with 2:59.58.  The second day began with a bronze medal being won by Jones in the 400m freestyle followed by another bronze medal from Pugh in the finals of the 100m free having already set a pb in the heats went even better to record 1:07.59 the top four all within two tenths of each other but being the youngest will be lying 2^nd in the UK.

Expectations were high from Pershore's strong breaststrokers with McLean not disappointing with yet another gold medal in the 50m breast in a time of 41.66 only one hundredths from the Championship best performance record but now lying 2^nd in the UK.  In the thirteen year old age group Sykes swam to a magnificent 5^th place in the finals whilst Jones had already improved from 8^th in the heats to finish 7^th in the finals.

Both Seward's and Pugh's best events came next with the 200m backstroke with Seward finishing an agonising 1.5 seconds outside the Midland Qualifying time with 2:50.61 (pb) whilst Pugh once again was pleased with the bronze medal swimming against older 11 year old girls benefitting from twice the training hours at the City of Birmingham club with Pugh closing into 3.5 seconds of the National Age Group Champs Qualifying time with 2:39.50 and finishing 2^nd in the UK end of year rankings.

A magnificent 6 secs pb came from Doyle in the boys 200m IM with 3:03.27. whilst McLean took bronze in the 10year old group with 3:03.09 with a comfortable MQT, Jones finishing just 5 seconds short but an impressive 4^th place on the rostrum.   Pugh entered the 50m breast (her weakest stroke) just to keep her eye in and was delighted to make the finals in 7^th place but when sixth in the finals with a two second pb with 41.66 was beyond her wildest dream.  Lizzie Vizard (12) was also in action in the 50m breast and swam to a new pb with 42.96.

In the penultimate event in the boys 100m free no medals were won but a 4^th from McLean a 6^th and 7^th from Jones and Doyle with pbs to match a pleased Head Coach Tom Naughton.   Pugh closed the meeting with a grueling 200m butterfly and took her fifteenth individual medal of the championships and sixth silver with an 8second pb of  2:54.08 becoming her ninth Midlands Qualifying time to be competed for in June.

With Pershore swimmers recording a superb 77 pbs, 26 finals, 22 medals, 7 Midland District Qualifying times the 2011 County Championships became the best on record for the small family friendly but competitive club and one sure to be remembered repaying a debt of gratitude to the town folk who kept the club going through various closures and floods during the last twenty years.

 With hundreds more pbs coming from the time trials back at club Pershore S.C. are now getting prepared for the first round of their Midlands Junior League match on 9^th April in Birmingham.