13 Jun 2010

Tazmin produces the goods.

 

It has been a fantastic seven days for Pershore Swimming Club's Tazmin Pugh.  She has been competing at the Midland District Age Group Swimming Championships in Coventry over two whole weekends. There then followed the news that she has been selected to represent the County in a three Way Inter-County Match later in the month together with a place on the winter county development squad. Finally when competing for her school (Bowbrook House in Peopleton) in the Midlands ISA Athletic Championships she finished ahead of her nearest rival by 20m and 30m respectively when competing in the 150m and 600m.  Pugh will now go forward to represent the Midlands in the National ISA Athletic Championships in Bedford in a week's time.

 

In her chosen sport of swimming, however, Pugh competed in her very first Midland Age Group Swimming Championships at Coventry's Olympic 50m Pool with her eyes set on any medal winning opportunities having qualified for a staggering nine events.  Top swimmers from the West and East Midlands elite swimming clubs set their sights on this prestigious event in the 12 previous months when trying to make the difficult qualifying times needed to enter. 

 

In her inaugural event of the first weekend Pugh surprisingly made the final of the 200m free finishing 7th but gaining a new long course personal best (pb) olong the way with 2.37.21.  In her next event Pugh won her first medal fighting to the end finishing in the silver medal position in the 100m backstroke again in a new long course pb of 1.23.25.

 

In the 200m fly Pugh bettered her heat time by 20 seconds when finishing 4th in the final again recording a superb long course pb of 3.09.15.  On the Sunday Pugh competed in the gruelling 400m Individual Medley (IM) with a long course pb of 6.23.73.

 

The second weekend saw Pugh's competing in her fifth event the 200m backstroke where she qualified in the heats in 3rd place but managing to swim even quicker  in the finals again finishing in the silver medal position with another long course pb of 2.54.35.  Pugh was joined by her Pershore Swimming club mate Alison Seward who swam a new long course time herself with 3.05.54.

 

Pugh's sixth event was the 100m fly where another long course pb of 1.24.92 saw her finish in 3rd place and taking the bronze medal.  After a tiring day and with a disappointing 200m IM, Pugh had to summon up one last effort in her determination to win another medal this time in the 100m freestyle.  She led out strong but by the turn at the 50m point, had been caught and passed but her great fighting instinct came to the fore sprinting back from 4th / 5th  place with only 25m to go to eventually take the bronze medal with yet another long course pb of 1.12.79 which converts to an excellent short course time of 1.11.60.  In her final event of the weekend the 400m free Pugh finished 7th with another long course pb of  5.34.18.

 

At the conclusion of the meet those girls lucky enough (nineteen of the forty-nine ten year olds) to have competed in at least four of the different type of events would be in line for the top girl 'FINA' points competition which takes the best results from 100m events, medleys, 200m Back, Breast, Fly, and 200m & 400m Free events.   Pugh was the only girl from the County who lined up alongside other National Age Group Championship hopefuls for 2011 to take her 4th place trophy and prizes also knowing she was the youngest on the podium, the only ones ahead of her being four to six months older.

 

It means Pugh in her end of year 'long course' (Olympic size 50m length pool) rankings now lies 1std in the UK  in the 100m back,  200m fly, 400m IM events, 100m fly, 100m free, and 2nd in the 200m free, 200m back and 3rd in the 400m free from the 3,000 + girls from competitive swimming clubs in her age group.


All news