Pershore pairing help County to win
25 Jun 2012
Pershore pairing help County to win
Pershore swimmers and both fellow pupils at Abbey Park Middle School twelve year old Tazmin Pugh and ten year old Simon Sweatman did their county proud when invited to represent Hereford and Worcestershire in the annual three-way Inter County match with Staffordshire and Gloucestershire at Redditch's new stadium complex last weekend. This was Sweatman's first presentation of his county colours, Tazmin having represented her county for the last three years running since she was eligible at ten.
Pugh was in action almost immediately in the 12 year 100m Backstroke coming home comfortably in 1st place with a new personal best pb of 1:07.46 and climbing to 2nd in the UK short course in her end of year rankings being the 14th best of all time for her age group from the five million on the data base with still another six months to go before she is 13. Pugh's second individual event was in the 100m Fly once again winning comfortably with yet another pb of 1:07.72 taking the honours from the next age group up at the same time and putting her up to 1st in the UK and 19th best of all time. Pugh helped her team win the 4 x 50 Freestyle and Medley events together with the 6 x 50m Cannon comprising two girls of each of the 12, 14, 16 + age groups achieving some great split times.
Tazmin will be swimming both these events together with the 100m Free and 200m Back in the National Age Group Championships in two weeks time and these County winning performances bode well for making the finals there in Sheffield though she knows to be realistic she would still need to chop another few seconds off her times for a medal placing. Pugh helped her team win the 4 x 50 Freestyle and Medley events together with the 6 x 50m Cannon comprising two girls of each of the 12, 14, 16 + age groups achieving some great split times.
Pugh was also in action in the south Worcestershire district athletics winning the 800m track title and sharing 1st place in high jump event. Even though a year 7 pupil, because her 800m time was quicker than the yr 8's she was duly invited to represent the district in the 'Minor Counties Athletic Championships' at Hereford where she went on to take gold in a new personal best time of 2.39.03 against yr 8 pupils from Hereford; Wyre Forest; Malvern Hills; Worcester City and Leominster districts.
Sweatman was also in action for his County's swimming match early on setting off in fine style for the 6 x 50m Freestyle cannon comprising two boys of each of the 10; 12 and 14 + age group handing over already a good lead recording 31.75 to their second swimmer with their team going on to win easily. In the boys 50m Fly Sweatman came home in 1st place with 34.59 putting him up to 2ndin the UK,. Sweatman followed this up with an even better and impressive 50m freestyle swim comfortably winning in a time of 31.86 at the same time beating the next age group up who were in the water at the same time swimming concurrently in the other three lanes. The ten year old went on to help his team win the 4 x 50m Freestyle race and 4 x 50m Medley event
At the end of the day 1st place went to Hereford and Worcestershire with 348pts followed by Staffordshire on 294pts and Gloucestershire 3rd on 280pts, making it 2 years in a row now that Worcestershire have taken the title after a losing streak of ten years was broken last year.
Ian photo