Pershore pairing excell at the Midlands.
14 Jun 2012
Pershore pairing excell at the Midlands.
Two swimmers from Pershore Swimming Club have just competed in the Midlands Championships, having achieved difficult qualifying times over the last 6 months. The area comprises nine counties from across the East and West Midlands with twelve year old Tazmin Pugh continuing her progress to the National Championships in July and ten year old Simon Sweatman still too young for making a bid for the Nationals this year, is already making a powerful impression on the swimming scene.
On the first weekend it was Tazmin who set the ball rolling in the 200m free where she finished 12th which was a few places better than the previous and climbing to 14th in the UK end of yr rankings. In her next event she improved dramatically to take silver in the 100m backstroke and climbing to 4th in the UK rankings (approximately up to 1,000 competitors in her age with long course times). Again improving on last year Tazmin made the 200m final in 8th place with her heat time raising her to 10thin the UK. On the second day of the weekend she swam the grueling 400m Individual Medley (IM) coming 9th and rising to 14th in UK in the long course (50m pool) rankings.
Young Simon Sweatman had achieved the Midland qualifying times in style and was the youngest 10 year old boy taking part and yet continued to swim over the four days of competition with great style starting off in the 400m IM with 6:35.74 finishing 10th in the Midlands and rising to 10thin the UK. In the 200m free he achieved 10th place again with a new long course personal best recording 2:40.12. and 19th in the UK. Like Tazmin, Simon improved in the 100m backstroke taking silver with a time of 1:20.70 and with this new pb rose to 5thin the UK.
At the beginning of the second weekend Tazmin scrapped in to the 8 girl 200m backstroke finals qualifying in 7th place though in the finals improved by over 3 seconds to set a new long course pb of 2:32.16 just missing out on a medal by finishing 4th place and putting her 4thin the UK. Pugh's next race was in the 100m fly where she was seeded 2nd but grabbed a new long course pb and took the gold medal in fine style with a time of 1:09.34 climbing to 2ndin the UK. Her last race was the 800m free where Tazmin recorded another long course pb with 10:11.77.
For Simon he competed in the 200m back entering with the quickest time and securing his place in the finals with a time of 2:48.67. Setting off strong Simon just couldn't shake off the challenge of two of his competitors though proudly finishing in bronze medal position with an even better time of 2:47.03 and climbing to 3rdin the UK.
On the fourth and final day of competition Tazmin fought her way into the 200m IM finals recording yet another long course pb and although in first place for the first 100m she was eventually overhauled in the breaststroke leg having to settle for 7th place. This race took place immediately following the 100m free where Tazmin finished 4th with a time of 1:04.15. In her very last event of the day the 400m free Tazmin set another pb with a time of 4.52.04.
Meanwhile Simon kicked off the last day with the 400m free and with all his times being long course pb's this being his first ever 50m pool experience his time of 5.39.88 sees him climb to 18th in the UK. In an exciting 100m free Simon came in 4th and up to 4thin the UK and then two grueling weekends of competition began to take its toll on the young star when in the 200m IM he fought his way into the finals eventually coming in 8th in 3:03.40 though his time from the heats 2:59.60 should put him unofficially up to 7th in the UK in the end of year ranking..
With both Simon winning Silver and Bronze and Tazmin's winning Gold and Silver medals and regularly high up in the placings in other events they were further rewarded with their overall placing positions being in the top eight in their age groups, Simon finished 5th with 1092 FINA pts from the 32 10 year old boys competing at the Midlands with Tazmin finishing on 2134 pts and 6thoverall out of the 89 girls in the 12 year old division.
Simon and Tazmin's pride and achievement in getting in to the highly regarded top 8 of their age groups cannot be over estimated as it proves to team selectors in the county, region or eventually country their true potential across all of the strokes. For Simon, of course having to carry the additional handicap of being the youngest in his first ever Midland District competition and coming through with placing positions he can be proud of, is a major result. Having achieved qualifying times since the age of ten Tazmin's results are also impressive having come 4th when 10years of age, 7th when 11 and now 6th when 12 means she is consistently making her mark on the swimming scene.
Their results have been rewarded further having been selected for the annual three way inter county match next weekend (25th June) between Worcester, Staffordshire and Gloucestershire.
Ian P Photo