Pershore duo leave competitors in their wake in Bi
12 Jul 2009
Pershore duo leave competitors in their wake in Birmingham.
Pershore Swimming Clubs duo of Alison Seward and Tazmin Pugh both still 9 were in action in the Boldmere Water Carnival in Birmingham at the weekend. The superbly organised two day swimming Gala attracts some of the best swimmers in the country so Seward and Pugh were in good company.
Pugh entered four events on the Saturday and went into the first event of the day with the second fastest qualification time in the 200m freestyle. Pugh surprised herself and recorded her best time to date with 2:50.30 leaving her ranked 19th in the UK, 2nd in the Region and youngest of all those listed. It was then onto the 50m backstroke together with team mate Seward. Seward was in an earlier heat and set a blistering time of 40.90 an improvement on her previous best by 3.5 secs and was lying in 1st place with Pugh about to go. Pugh's previous best was 41.01 but she went out quick and maintained her ambitious pace to record her second win of the day with 40.07 leaving her 7th in the present UK rankings and the 13th best time in the 'all time UK ranking' from the last twelve years. Seward herself at her highest ranking ever is now 13th.
This one/two for the Pershore pairing was fantastic news when coming into the third event the 200 Individual Medley. This has always been one of Pugh's better events but had been stuck on a time of 3:07.08 since March. Again Seward swam first but with a disqualification on her backstroke tumble turn it was left to Pugh to see if 1st place was possible yet again. Indeed it was and with 3:04.42 gave her not only gold on the day but a 4th ranking in the UK and on top in the Region.
Pugh had one event left and everyone was wondering if she could pull off the near impossible four wins out of four. It looked promising as it was in the 50m fly one of her best strokes. Isobel Griffiths from the much larger Redditch club and ranked 1st in the Region with 39.89 stood in her way and was to swim in the next heat after Pugh. In the 4th heat Seward from Pershore had already set a new pb of 46.08. Pugh had already seen off other close competition in the form of Kate Davies (42.19) from the powerful and historic Boldmere club, setting a new pb time of 39.95. With Griffiths only able to manage 41.39, Pugh collected her fourth 1st place trophy of the day lying 7th in the UK rankings and 2nd in the Region six-hundredth of a second behind 1st.
As if this wasn't enough Seward had still to swim her last event regarded as one of her best being the 200m back but again there was strong opposition. Olga Hall had figured against the two Pershore swimmers throughout the day and coming from one of the Regions strongest clubs Solihull could not be ignored. Hall went in the heat immediately prior to Seward and set the standard of 3:13.08. Seward's previous best had been 3:15.30 itself a massive pb at the time of over 27 secs. Seward set off in fine form and learning from her earlier DQ executed her turns excellently leaving her to sprint the last length with nothing to spare. In a nail biting finish her time of 3:12.58, and was enough to give Seward her first ever 1st place in an open Gala.
This leaves both girls in the top 50 in the UK rankings Seward 40th and Pugh 14th from amongst the 10,000 nine year old female competitors throughout the country. What would the second day bring. Seward once again gained pb's in all her events with 38.06 in her 50 free; 53.17 in her 50 free and 7th place and 1:36.27 in the 100m Individual Medley.
Pugh started the day with 2nd place in the 50m free just 0.35 behind 1st place Kathryn Lythgo from Stratford Sharks with a time of 35 19, Pugh's second best time ever. Her weaker breaststroke events came up next with Pugh recording 49.00secs in the 50m event and coming in 4th but then beating all her competitors save one in the 200m breaststroke coming 2nd with a new pb of 3:36.94, leaving her 6th in the UK.
Pugh has always excelled at the 100m Individual Medley and in the last event of the weekend Pugh was in the ninth heat. She set off with a blistering butterfly and backstroke leg with 41.57 for the first 50m and with a 48.61 for the final 50m comprising the breaststroke and front crawl leg left the opposition in her wake with a time of 1:30.18, retaining her 9th place ranking in the UK.
Head coach Tom Naughton has inspired the club with this fighting spirit since joining the club and so how could any one have ever doubted the girls would bring home this medal haul of six 1st's, two 2nd one 4th and one 5th from eight events was second to non. In fact Tazmin Pugh (competing in eight events) came 3rd overall from the 200 girls present gaining 44 points even though at nine years of age she was not allowed to enter all the fourteen events open to the older girls, the winner coming from Middlesborough was able to score 49 points. PHOTO