The Loneliness of the Long Distance Swimmer
19 Dec 2011
Lone Visitor to Corby comes home with Gold
In swimming's highest class Level One Open Meet in the 50m International Pool in Corby staged by Northampton S.C. Tazmin Pugh from Pershore set about trying to improve her long course (50m pool) personal bests and trying to make an impression on next year's National Qualifying times.
Although achieving a 9 sec pb she was disappointed with her first event on the Friday evening being the 800m free coming 4th with 10.30.79 (converting to 10.21.60 short course) having swum a sub 10 minutes a few weeks earlier in the Worcester Club Champs.
Tazmin approached Saturday as a new day, however, and a 1stplace in the 100m fly in a new personal best (pb) and Midland Qualifying time (MQT) of 1:14.19 (rising to 7th in the UK end of year long course rankings) resulted in her getting back on track. Pugh followed this success with a another gold medal place in the 50m free in a new pb of 30.59 and 4th in the UK, no doubt inspired with many of the GB swimming Squad from Loughborough University including Liam Tancock and Co freshly tanned from training in Florida arriving to compete in the same meet with the Sky T/V cameras in tow. A six second improvement in her next event the 200m free (MQT) found her collecting the bronze medal whilst another pb in her weakest event the 100m breaststroke and a bronze in the 200m back finished the second day with collecting four medals.
Sunday's competition began with a gold medal in the 200m Individual Medley (MQT) followed by yet another gold medal in the 100m free with a time of 1.05.47 only 3 seconds short but closing in on next year's National Qualifying time and rising to 5th in the UK. In her two final events Tazmin brought home a silver in the 400m free just 2 sec short of a MQT and gold in the 100m back in 1.14.32 (4thin the UK) easily within the MQT and only 2 sec short of the National time.
Winning eight medals with five of them being gold at such a high class prestigious meet overall Tazmin felt pleased with her weekend's hard work and achievements, particularly so carrying a double ear infection commonly known as 'swimmer's ear' but wanting to show she was worthy of the faith shown in her from the 'Sports Partnership Hereford and Worcester' when winning the recent Junior Female Sports Person of the year award. She was also touched that the Loughborough University Director of Swimming Mr Ian Armiger took a kindly interest in her being surprised at such little time being allowed for club training at Pershore, and granted an open invite to Tazmin to visit his members of the GB Squad during training and maybe join in herself for a session.
So long as she can throw off the infection Tazmin will be in full training over the festive period ready to compete in the County Championships in which she has qualified in every one of the eighteen events and will be joined by nearly twenty of her team mates being over 25% of those eligible to compete in the club. Tazmin will then have to fix her eyes on qualifying still further than the seven events already for the Midland District Champs in the meantime trying to secure National times.
Ian