South West Regional Age Group Championships:

8 out of 8

Tyler Checchia went to the ASA South West Regional Age groups Championships and got 8 personal best times from 8 swims.

Road trips to Bristol and Millfield were well worth the journey for Tyler.

Competing in 4 events at each location, Tyler managed to get 8 out of 8 as personal best times.

His first attendance at ‘Regionals’ is an experience he is looking forward to repeating for years to come!

The first weekend at Bristol, Tyler achieved PB’s in 50m Backstroke, 100m Backstroke, 200m Butterfly and 50 Butterfly.

Two weekends later at Millfield, Tyler chalked up more PB’s in 100m Freestyle, 200m Individual Medley, 200m Backstroke and 100m Butterfly.

His best result would be 10th in the 200m IM.

Congratulations Tyler on qualifying for Regionals and for all those PB’s.

SX3 Team Announced

17 of our swimmers have been selected for the Swindon Swim Squad this year.

This is a massive achievement for our club and I think a record number of swimmers selected.

Congratulations to:

Alyssa Halliday
Max Sullivan
Harry Carpenter
Joseph Warrington
Alice Steckerl
Annabel Ollerhead
Alicia Hawkins
Amy Jones
Rory Halliday
Harvey Stone
Georgia Bevan
Aaron Bailey
Ethan Jennings
Chris O’Hara
Olivia Moore
Sasha Stone
Tyler Checchia

What is SX3?

In October 2007, Swindon Swim Squad (Sx3) was formed with the objective of enabling the elite swimmers of Swindon based swimming clubs to compete at the highest possible level. The aim was to achieve this by competing as combined teams in the Southern Junior League. The team is made up of the top young swimmers from Highworth ASC, Swindon ASC, Tigersharks ASC and Wroughton ASC.

What events are involved?

There are 4 age groups, 9, 10, 11 and 12 years old. There are individual events for each stroke within each age group and relay events within each age group.

How are swimmers selected?

The swimmers are selected based on their performance at the SX3 development time trial, and times recorded on the ASA rankings database.

 

Summer League Round 1

Its Moonraker Summer League time again, which means the weather is getting better, the nights are longer and poolside is like a sauna! After 2 years of back to back promotions, the team were unfortunately relegated last year meaning we are in a division with Warminster, Durrington and Calne this time round.

For the benefit of those of you who are new to the team, Summer League takes the format of 4 teams competing with each other over 4 rounds with top and bottom finishers promoted/relegated. There are a number of relays as with Winter League, but there are also individual races and increased distances of 50m for younger age groups and 100m for the oldies!

After the long journey to Warminster, the team took a little while to get going with a tough first 10 races bringing one 1st for Alyx dominating the boys U16 2L freestyle, a 2nd for Olivia in the girls U14 2L breaststroke and then 7 x 3rd places and a 4th.

Races 11-20 faired a little better with the boys U16 4×1 medley (Alyx, Tomas, Max and Archie) leading throughout and despite a valiant fight back from Calne. Tracey held her nerve in the girls open 4L butterfly for another 1st place. There was a 2nd for Jake in the boys U14 2L freestyle and for Beth in the girls race. There were also 2 x 3rd and 2 x 4th places leaving the team 3rd after 20 races, 13 points behind Warminster in 2nd and 17 behind Calne in 1st.

There were no fewer than 6 x 2nd places in the next 10 races, with a 3rd and 2 x 4th places. In their respective U16 2L butterfly races, Alyx was unlucky to pipped by a stroke, whilst Grace put in a solid performance to be 2nd throughout. The boys U14 4×1 medley (Jake, Alex S, Tyler and Andrew), finished 2nd to Calne with Andrew unlucky not to catch the winner. The boys Open 4×1 medley (Jack, Tomas, Max and Paul) gained another 2nd and in the U16 butterfly categories there were strong swims by Max and Liberty for their 2nd places with Liberty beaten by just a stroke. Just over half way through the evening and the team now found themselves 14 points behind Warminster with Calne running away a full 26 points ahead of them!

After a typically strong effort from Tyler for a second in the boys U14 2L backstroke, Sasha put in a fantastic performance to run away with the girl’s race. In the boys U12 4×1 freestyle (Harvey, Rory, Ethan and Aaron) led from start to finish to win by a touch, followed by a win for the boys U16 4×1 freestylers (Archie, Max, Alyx and Tomas) who again led throughout, winning by a couple of strokes. In a very close race, the girls U16 4×1 freestyle team (Katie, Cloe, Liberty and Grace) were very unlucky to finish second by just a touch after being in contention the whole race. These results were backed up by 4 x 3rd and 1 x 4th places.

In the final 10 races there were 3 x 1st places, 3 x 2nd, 2 x 3rd and 2 x 4th. A determined performance from Aaron in the boys U12 1L backstroke in which he even had time for a look across to see where his rivals were, produced the first win. Tomas had a battle in the boys U16 2L breaststroke, neck and neck all the way with him touching the wall just a hand length ahead of 2nd place. Another closely fought race was the girls U14 4×1 freestyle relay (Sasha, Regan, Beth and Rowan) who managed to dig in and hold on to the 1st place they held the whole race. As with the 1st place races, the 3 x 2nd places were all gained in races where the swimmers were in contention throughout, but just beaten by the smallest of margins. Emily in the open 4L freestyle, Grace in the U16 2L breaststroke and the boys U14 4×1 freestyle relay (Harvey, Jake, Andrew and Tyler) were all pipped despite valiant efforts.

Remembering the gap to Warminster was 14 points after 30 races, the team managed to end the night in second place with 122 pts, with Calne the winners on the night with 155 pts, with Warminster on 116 pts and Durrington in 4th (98).

A fantastic finish to the night and well done to all the swimmers, especially many of the youngsters who were swimming in their first league competition. Let’s start off Summer League 2 as we ended round 1 and claw back that point’s gap to Calne!

As always, a massive thank you to all the coaches, officials and volunteers for your help and all the parents and family who made the long trip to Warminster to give the team their support.

Summer League 2 is at Durrington on 13th June. See you all there!

Mike Bevan
Publicity Secretary

Regional Youth Championships

Grace makes the final

Wow – one of our swimmers, Grace Steckerl, made it to the final of the Womens 15yrs 50m Breaststroke Final at the South West Regional Summer Youth Championships, held at the May Life Centre, Plymouth on Sunday 3rd May 2015.

Recording a personal best time of 37.30 seconds in her qualifying heat, Grace was in 8th place.

Unfortunately nerves got the better of Grace and a wobble on the block led to her being disqualified in the Final.

Grace enjoyed the experience and is keen to attend regionals again.

Congratulations Grace on qualifying for Regionals and for making the final. Better luck next year.