Personal Bests galore at County Swimming Champions

24 Mar 2010

Personal Bests galore at County Swimming Championships.

 

 

 

During the last two months of Worcestershire has been staging their County Swimming Championships and with just one weekend to go Pershore Club's Swimmers have been making an impression.  With times this year being really tough for even qualifying it was especially pleasing the club managed to get more swimmers there than in previous years with nine members, almost 14% of its membership, and qualifying for thirty six events. 

 

The penultimate weekend brought in a staggering nineteen personal bests (pb's). The first of these came from ten year old Joseph Doyle in the 100 Individual Medley (IM). Doyle improved by over 3 seconds to record 1min32.14 just missing out on a place in the final.  Doyle once again set a pb on his way to his first County final qualifying in sixth place in the 50m backstroke with 41.32 and showing great determination swam even better in the final coming 4th with 41.14 a fine achievement.  On the second day of competition Doyle made another final this time in the 100m backstroke with 1min27.43 achieving 5th place in the county in his age group.

 

One of Pershore club's other ten year old boys also set a new 3 sec pb in the 100m IM being Drew Jones with 1.31.80.  Eleven year old Harry Sykes having to swim in the twelve year old boy division as he would be in that age group by the last day of competition swam 2.46.00 in the 200m freestyle following this with an impressive 6 sec pb the next day with 3.15.92 in the 200m breaststroke event.

 

For Pershore's ten year old girls Alison Seward improved on her recent form following an illness in the 50m back (41.31); 100mIM and a new pb of 1.30.02 in the 100m back.  From this first weekend, however, it was Tazmin Pugh who only turned ten eight weeks ago who was taking home the medals in fact one in each of her races, six in total being two gold three silver and one bronze. It was the way in which she did it which impressed those watching, with Pugh setting eight pb's  in the heats and then again in the finals. This is a feat not to be underestimated bearing in mind these young swimmers are swimming over an nine hour period each day for two days with the finals taking place in the early evening.

 

Pugh's two golds came in the 50m fly (37.34 & 1st in end of year UK rankings) where less than one second separated all six finalists. The second gold came in the 100m fly (1.23.99 making her 2nd in UK) where after racing alongside Isobel Griffiths from Redditch for 3 lengths just managed to get away winning by less than a one second at the finish.   Her three silver medals came in the 100m IM (1.22.04 now 1st in UK) where a three meter lead from the fly and backstroke legs disappeared during the breaststroke leg culminating in an enthralling final length of freestyle with Pugh going from 3rd to 2nd just missing out on a fingertip finish of under 0.3 seconds to the eventual winner Emma Baker from top club Halesowen.

 

Another silver was added in the 100m back (1.21.30 being 1st in UK) losing to Caitlin Britt from Redditch.  The third silver medal came in the 50m back but setting a new pb of 36.97 in the heats was another great swim and again ranking her 1st in the UK in the end of year rankings. 

 

Pugh made up her full set of medals with a bronze in the 200m free and yet still achieving a 6 sec pb with 2.38.47 ranking her 5th in the UK and a place in the Regional Championships.  The Pershore ace has already equaled her haul of six medals from last year's championships and with another six events in her next weekend at Wolverhampton Pugh should be sure to surpass that fine achievement though it remains to be seen as to what colour medal.

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