GALA REPORTS
Haden Hill Open Meet - Sunday 8th April 2018
Held at Wolverhampton
A successful day
Our first Open Meet of the year saw us take 19 swimmers to compete at this event, by far the highest amount over the last two years. This number also included 4 swimmers who had not competed at an Open Meet before, whilst two of those had not competed at an event outside our Club Championships. I’d like to extend a big well done to Lacey Small, Olivia Samuels, Emily Evans and Rebecca Morgan, who all destroyed their entry times, and swam very composed races as the day went on, I hope they enjoyed the experience.
With our swimmers racing a combined 108 races in total it was a very busy day with races coming thick and fast. However, it didn’t seem to phase our swimmers too much as out of those 108 races we recorded a massive new 69 personal bests. There were some exceptional swims in there from Ben Lucas, who is now within 2 seconds of the Regional Qualifying time for 50 Free. Esther Cunniffe is now only 0.7 seconds off both the 50m Back and the 100 Free Regional times and congratulations must go to Ellis Legg who gains his 4th regional time by swimming his fastest 100m Free yet, meaning he will now qualify for the Regionals for the 3rd year in a row. Both Ben and Esther are turning out to be a good inspiration for some of our younger swimmers, their attitude in training is rubbing off in their races and is showing that a positive attitude and a desire to do as well as possible can make a huge difference to how we swim.
There were further great swims from Adam Whitehouse on his 100m Free, knocking off 10 seconds, Harvie Lal who swam really well despite being unable to train for two weeks and still managed to record some impressive times and Eva Browne who swam every race better and faster than before and also achieved some very high placed finishes. There were also much improved swims from Kavan Fletcher, Molly Jenner-Flukes, Luca Whaley, Sarah Tavares, Tom Lucas and Trinity Parkes and further race experience gained for Scarlett Fletcher and Willem Cunniffe. Beth Seager showed that hard work in training does pay off as she recorded her fastest swims in all but one event, whilst Ellie-Poppy Turner also had some great swims and is a fantastic example of how important swimming with a sound technique is.
Overall I was very impressed with our swimmers and how they conducted themselves throughout a very long day, how well they raced and for the most part, the determination they showed to do well. There is still a little bit of work to do in training with some of our younger swimmers, and if we can begin to show more focus and application in our training sessions we will continue to improve our overall swimming. We have come a long way over the last two years but we have to remember the life of a swimmer is a marathon and not a sprint, and we should all be very proud of how they swam at this meet.
Raj Singh
Head Coach
OSTC
Held at Wolverhampton
A successful day
Our first Open Meet of the year saw us take 19 swimmers to compete at this event, by far the highest amount over the last two years. This number also included 4 swimmers who had not competed at an Open Meet before, whilst two of those had not competed at an event outside our Club Championships. I’d like to extend a big well done to Lacey Small, Olivia Samuels, Emily Evans and Rebecca Morgan, who all destroyed their entry times, and swam very composed races as the day went on, I hope they enjoyed the experience.
With our swimmers racing a combined 108 races in total it was a very busy day with races coming thick and fast. However, it didn’t seem to phase our swimmers too much as out of those 108 races we recorded a massive new 69 personal bests. There were some exceptional swims in there from Ben Lucas, who is now within 2 seconds of the Regional Qualifying time for 50 Free. Esther Cunniffe is now only 0.7 seconds off both the 50m Back and the 100 Free Regional times and congratulations must go to Ellis Legg who gains his 4th regional time by swimming his fastest 100m Free yet, meaning he will now qualify for the Regionals for the 3rd year in a row. Both Ben and Esther are turning out to be a good inspiration for some of our younger swimmers, their attitude in training is rubbing off in their races and is showing that a positive attitude and a desire to do as well as possible can make a huge difference to how we swim.
There were further great swims from Adam Whitehouse on his 100m Free, knocking off 10 seconds, Harvie Lal who swam really well despite being unable to train for two weeks and still managed to record some impressive times and Eva Browne who swam every race better and faster than before and also achieved some very high placed finishes. There were also much improved swims from Kavan Fletcher, Molly Jenner-Flukes, Luca Whaley, Sarah Tavares, Tom Lucas and Trinity Parkes and further race experience gained for Scarlett Fletcher and Willem Cunniffe. Beth Seager showed that hard work in training does pay off as she recorded her fastest swims in all but one event, whilst Ellie-Poppy Turner also had some great swims and is a fantastic example of how important swimming with a sound technique is.
Overall I was very impressed with our swimmers and how they conducted themselves throughout a very long day, how well they raced and for the most part, the determination they showed to do well. There is still a little bit of work to do in training with some of our younger swimmers, and if we can begin to show more focus and application in our training sessions we will continue to improve our overall swimming. We have come a long way over the last two years but we have to remember the life of a swimmer is a marathon and not a sprint, and we should all be very proud of how they swam at this meet.
Raj Singh
Head Coach
OSTC
24th March 2018
PGL (Ross) League Round 2
Held at Bromsgrove Leisure Centre
Fantastic Follow Up
The second round of the Ross League was held at Bromsgrove Leisure Centre and what a night of swimming it was, after swimming brilliantly in round 1, we got treated to an even better performance this time round. With more new swimmers racing for the first time, the competition for places is increasing which is a great dilemma to have for the first time in a long time, especially with our younger swimmers coming through. This highlights the good work our staff and helpers are doing in getting these swimmers up to a competitive standard as we start to gain some depth in our development squad.
The emphasis at the start of the gala was once again to swim well and not try to ‘race’, focusing on transferring what we do in training into a competition, and even though the results were less than a secondary goal, swimming well got us some good results once again. We got off to a brilliant start with Luca and Abbie coming second and first respectively. 9 out of the first 10 races saw us finish in the top two. There were some phenomenal swims from Emily Evans, Abigail Bowater, who despite being very nervous and racing for the first time, came second and first in her two individuals. Young Finley continued his good form from round 1 into this round whilst Evie-May and Willem continue to impress with some solid swims. Eva and Harvie continue to rule the breaststroke with two more wins in their individuals whilst there was some quality swimming from Esther, Sasha, Chris and Beth in their events. If I could go through and name every swimmer I would as this was a great result, that had us leading the gala for a long time.
I was very impressed with the quality of swimming this round, especially considering we had done pretty well in the first round, however against teams of a similar calibre we managed to achieve almost 30 points more this round which is a huge difference. The improvement shown over the two rounds was also great to see, within a month, swimmers were swimming a lot better, faster and with even more composure than they did in the previous round. What was good to see is that despite how we did, we can still improve, and hopefully it is this continued drive to do well that will start making us a real competitive force in the near future. Our next Junior Gala is the National Junior League on the 14th followed by the third round of the Ross league on the 21st April. Let’s continue the effort and positive attitude showed tonight into the next few weeks of training so we can swim as well as possible in our next competitions.
Thank you again to the chaperones and helpers, parents for coming along to support and well done to the swimmers who are impressing round by round. Let’s keep it going Oldbury.
Raj Singh
Head Coach
OSTC
Final standings: 1st Place – Northgate 179. 2nd Place – Oldbury 161. 3rd Place – Evesham 125. 4th Place – Cheltenham 120.
PGL (Ross) League Round 2
Held at Bromsgrove Leisure Centre
Fantastic Follow Up
The second round of the Ross League was held at Bromsgrove Leisure Centre and what a night of swimming it was, after swimming brilliantly in round 1, we got treated to an even better performance this time round. With more new swimmers racing for the first time, the competition for places is increasing which is a great dilemma to have for the first time in a long time, especially with our younger swimmers coming through. This highlights the good work our staff and helpers are doing in getting these swimmers up to a competitive standard as we start to gain some depth in our development squad.
The emphasis at the start of the gala was once again to swim well and not try to ‘race’, focusing on transferring what we do in training into a competition, and even though the results were less than a secondary goal, swimming well got us some good results once again. We got off to a brilliant start with Luca and Abbie coming second and first respectively. 9 out of the first 10 races saw us finish in the top two. There were some phenomenal swims from Emily Evans, Abigail Bowater, who despite being very nervous and racing for the first time, came second and first in her two individuals. Young Finley continued his good form from round 1 into this round whilst Evie-May and Willem continue to impress with some solid swims. Eva and Harvie continue to rule the breaststroke with two more wins in their individuals whilst there was some quality swimming from Esther, Sasha, Chris and Beth in their events. If I could go through and name every swimmer I would as this was a great result, that had us leading the gala for a long time.
I was very impressed with the quality of swimming this round, especially considering we had done pretty well in the first round, however against teams of a similar calibre we managed to achieve almost 30 points more this round which is a huge difference. The improvement shown over the two rounds was also great to see, within a month, swimmers were swimming a lot better, faster and with even more composure than they did in the previous round. What was good to see is that despite how we did, we can still improve, and hopefully it is this continued drive to do well that will start making us a real competitive force in the near future. Our next Junior Gala is the National Junior League on the 14th followed by the third round of the Ross league on the 21st April. Let’s continue the effort and positive attitude showed tonight into the next few weeks of training so we can swim as well as possible in our next competitions.
Thank you again to the chaperones and helpers, parents for coming along to support and well done to the swimmers who are impressing round by round. Let’s keep it going Oldbury.
Raj Singh
Head Coach
OSTC
Final standings: 1st Place – Northgate 179. 2nd Place – Oldbury 161. 3rd Place – Evesham 125. 4th Place – Cheltenham 120.
13th January 2018
PGL (Ross) League Round 1
Held at West Bromwich Leisure Centre
What a Start!
The first competition of the year, and the first Junior gala in 6 months produced great performances all round. I personally was looking forward to seeing how our development and junior performance squad swimmers were going to perform after months off competing and was more than pleased with our result. We had 7 swimmers racing for the first time outside of our Club Championships and they swam like seasoned pros, despite some being asked to step in after others couldn’t make it, they have definitely staked a claim!
We got off to a flying start with Ben and Harvie winning their races and a great run of individuals in the middle saw Ben, Abbie, Luca, Matthew and more winning their races. Ben is now less than second off the Regional Time for 50 free. While young Finley, in his first competition smashed his 25m back and won his first ever race with relative ease and also finished 1st in his butterfly later on. Luca again won his 12 yrs 50m freestyle with probably one of the best races I’ve ever seen him swim. Eva V and Teddy also swam brilliantly in their 25m breaststroke events with another two wins whilst the girls 13yrs medley relay team got a very good 2nd. The boys 11yrs medley relay team finished in a respectable second, not far off a first place with some very good work on the takeovers. Further highlights included some really good swims from Evie-May, Rebecca, Emily, Amelie and Scarlett all swimming for the first time, and from Harvie, Willem, Musa, Tom, Chris, Abi, Beth, Esther and Jamie-Lee. If I could mention all of the swimmers here I would as they all swam superbly well.
It was great to see most of our swimmers, especially some of our younger 9-11’s trying to apply the skills they are developing in training into their racing. It’s a great start to the season and let’s continue to work hard in our training sessions to try an attain similar results in the upcoming rounds and other leagues. Overall finishing 2nd is a brilliant achievement and already surpasses all of our placed finishes from last year. If I could mention all of the swimmers I would because the effort and motivation tonight was unquestionable. With a continued effort in training, and if we can show more of the level of determination we show in a competition we will reach the final for the first time in 4 years, especially if all selected swimmers are available.
I’d like to thank all of our poolside helpers and chaperones for helping to look after over 30 swimmers on poolside. Also thank you and well done to all of the swimmers who behaved exceptionally well on poolside and were a credit to Oldbury for the duration. Lastly thanks to the parents for the support on the balcony. I thoroughly hope that all of our swimmers enjoyed the gala, especially all of our first-time racers and their parents. Looking forward to the next round.
Raj Singh
Head Coach
OSTC
Final Result: 1st Place – Pershore 172. 2nd Place – Oldbury 137. 3rd Place – Cheltenham 135. 4th Place - Stourbridge 116
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