Pershore S.C. at Worcs Club Open Meet
10 Oct 2010
Pershore's Swimmers punch above their weight.
In a three day long gala Worcester Swimming Club staged recently eleven swimmers from Pershore S.C. took on seventeen clubs two, three four times their size some boasting National Swimmers galore. This was a task not even considered possible beforehand until the leader board appeared following the first session on Friday evening.
This followed swims by the quartet of ten year olds Jack Betteridge and Tazmin Pugh with Joseph Doyle (11) and Harry Sykes (12). In the 400m freestyle Pugh was supremely victorious with a new personal best (pb) time of 5:09.13 building on a seven second record from the
On Saturday Pugh gained her second MQT with 2:48.30 in the 200m IM pushing her up to 2nd in the
The boys were joined by Pershore's rising star Tyler Mclean, only just having celebrated his 10th birthday who swam 44.78 himself for the 50m fly. In the girls 100m back Elizabeth Vizard (12) set a new pb with 1:27.14 whilst Doyle for the boys swam a
Mclean and Doyle both went on to CQT's in the 50m backstroke with 42.68 and 40.22 whilst Betteridge and Sykes swam 44.79 and 36.51. For the girls Alison Seward (11) and Ashley Gribble (13) joined the fray in the 50m backstroke with Seward gaining a
During the afternnon session ten year old Mclean won the 100m Breaststroke with a great time of 1:36.87 bringing him up to 12th in the
Sunday started with a win for Pugh in the grueling 200m butterfly with a new pb of 3:05.53, and with the boys with Mclean in the 50m Breast qualifying for the final in first place where he established his supremacy with another win in a superb time of 43.05, whilst in the same event for twelve year olds Sykes secured 2nd place in the finals with his 38.61. For the girls Pugh surprisingly made the finals in the 50m breaststroke and actually swam a life time best in a close fought finals recording 43.84 and taking bronze. In the 11/12 age groups Vizard and Laura Snape swam 45.61; 49.34 and 45.72 and in the 13/14 age Cordiner recorded 45.72.
In the 100m Freestyle Mclean swam a pb with 1:19.40 whilst Sykes set 1.09.04 in swimming to a bronze medal position.
In the 200m backstroke Seward returned to top form recording 2:55.66 which is now only 6 seconds short of a MQT but certainly well within the County time.
Tazmin Pugh finished her weekend with six gold medals, one silver and two bronze a host of pb's and a further four MQT's. Even though Pugh was not allowed to compete in four of her best events (being the 50m free and all the three backstroke events) because she was 'too fast' where she may have expected to add a further 24pts she still managed to accumulate 52pts gaining 4th Top Girl position from all age groups present, Megan Willetts from Halesowen club won with 58pts.
Harry Sykes himself finished with 43 pts in 7th Top Boy position taking one gold, 4 silver and 3 bronze whilst Tyler Mclean took home 3 gold and 1 silver all his County times and one Midland District time. Together with the above nine gold, six silver and five bronze medals Doyle and Betteridge gained more valuable points with their own top six placed finishes making a total of 133 pts and gaining the prestigious 3rd top visiting club beating fourteen other clubs some benefiting from ten times the pool time Pershore have. Winners were Halesowen who had 48 swimmers competing and 2nd were the side from the City of