Pershore win another 15 County Medals
12 Mar 2012
Pershore Swimmers add another 15 County Championship Medals to their total.
With just one more day to go fourteen members of Pershore Swimming competed in more medal winning performances and celebrated another successful weekend at the Hereford and Worcester Swimming Championships.
One of the first of the Pershore swimmers on the podium and improving on her silver medal on the previous weekend was nine year old Isobella Woodcock taking a comfortable and well deserved victory in the 50m breaststroke with a personal best (pb) of 46.11 with Maisy Robertson taking a creditable 5th place in the same age group. In the 50m freestyle Robertson, Woodcock and Amy Weston all set pbs with Naomi Marsden just 1 second down.
For the slightly older girls Tazmin Pugh (12) having competed in the County Cross Country Championships the day before taking silver for the yr 7 age group, started the day well with a pb in the 400m freestyle taking the silver medal in a time of 4.42.60 putting her in 1st place in the end of year UK short course rankings. In her next event the 50m free, Pugh took gold in a closely fought finish with 29.29 and again saw her rise to 2nd place in the UK. In the afternoon session although another pb Pugh missed out on a medal by coming home in 4th place with 2:39.0050m breaststroke with 40.18 coming 5th.
Pugh's better events came on the Sunday with a fingertip finish (eight hundredths splitting 1st and 2nd) and the silver medal in the 100m free in a time of 1:02.15 achieving her first National Qualifying time (NQT) of the year and 1st in the UK. The next event was the 200m backstroke where a time of 2:28.33 bought home another silver medal (2nd UK) but more importantly yet another NQT and her tenth Midland's time. Her final silver medal was in the gruelling 200m butterfly in a new pb of 2:40.56 and became her 11thMidlands Qualifying time.
Other girls from the Pershore club competing over the weekend were Lizzie Vizard (13); Ashley Gribble (14); and Alex Dobell (14) For the boys a strong showing found three of their members winning medals. For the boys it was once again 9 year old Simon Sweatman, although still not allowed to compete in the 100m events, took the County Championships by storm. Simon not only won another four 4 events having taken three gold medals and County records in the previous session two weeks ago but set another three Age Group Records making a total of six records so far.
Simon's first win and record came in the 50m freestyle recording 32.45 (4th in UK) whilst his second win and record for the weekend was in the 16 length 400m free in 5.31.52 beating the previous record by 7 seconds and climbing to 1st in the UK rankings. Simon repeated this again in the 200m Individual Medley (IM) coming home in 3:03.78 (3rd in the UK) whilst even in his weakest stroke the 50m breaststroke he still won in a time of 48.32 (12th in the UK) to make it three golds on the day and four over the weekend.
Even more important than these achievements in the County Championships so far was for Simon to have achieved the difficult Midland District Qualifying times (covering nine counties) with more expected.
Yr 5 Josh Sharratt had qualified in the 50m freestyle coming 12th in a time of 38.53 in the 10 year age group. The other medal winning performaces from the boys came from Christopher Vizard winning the 200m back in a a new pb of 3:12.64.going on later to win bronze in the 50m free and silver in the 400m free all adding to his tally of two the previous weekend. Setting a fantastic new pb and taking silver behind Sweatman in the 50m free was William Gearey in 35.27 retaining his position in the top five in the UK. With that result also, a rare feat of achieving 1st, 2nd and 3rd for the Pershore trio.. Owen Leeks and Joseph Doyle were both in the 12 year age group and both set pbs in nearly all they swam.
Harry Sykes (13) added to his two bronze medals so far taking gold in the 100m breaststroke in a new pb of 1:17.88 taking 5th in the 200m back and 50m free events and 4th in the 100m free. Sykes was back on the medal winning trail again with silver in the 50m breast and bronze in the 200m Individual Medley. James Gribble 17 had achieved his first County time and didn't waste time in setting a new pb in the 50m free with 27.72.