Round 1 of the Winter league saw our squad take on teams from Calne, Wroughton, and Trowbridge in an exciting night of relays hosted by Calne Alpha.

With over 30 swimmers in our squad alone and 39 races on the night – each involving 4 swimmers from each club – it is no surprise that the night resembled organised chaos at times and a great deal of credit needs to go to the coaching team who kept the swimmers focused, the heats running smoothly and the event fun.

There were too many great individual and team performances to names names but a special well done should go to the girls open 4×2 breaststroke team of Liberty, Emily, Tracey and Grace and the girls U17 4×1 breaststroke team of Olivia, Lydia, Liberty and Grace for their well earned wins.

In total, our squad took 2 first placed finishes, 10 second places, 16 third places and 13 fourth placed finishes on the night. (Subject to final clarification from the officials).

It was also great to see so many new faces in this years Winter league squad and let’s make sure we take the momentum from round 1 into the next round on 5 December at Trowbridge.

The overall team results on the night were.

Only 12 points separated us from hosts Wroughton for top club at the Wroughton ASC sprint meet held at the Link centre on Sunday 8th November.
Swimming against Wroughton, Tigersharks, Royal Wootton Bassett Otters, Durrington, Malmesbury and Gibralta we did fancy our chances, but with only 30 of our swimmers taking part, it was not going to be easy.
Only five events to choose from and most of our swimmers took part in all five – 50m in frontcrawl, backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly and a 100m individual medley.

A successful day with 60 personal best swims, 24 Gold, 10 silver and 11 bronze medals and we had 18 swimmers just missing out on the medals with 4th place finishes.

Age group best swimmers were also rewarded with a trophy. Our age-group winners were:

• Rory Halliday 10 years
• Tyler Checchia 12 years
• Grace Steckerl 15 years
• Lydia Zoupos 16 years
• Emily Moore 17+

Well done to everybody for taking part. Thank you to Sarah & Kelly for organising and thank you to all the officials and helpers. A big thank you to Wroughton ASC for hosting.

Looking forward to next year..

Note to club: Need to get the whole squad to go along next year!

A chance to swim in a different pool and perhaps pick up a qualifying time was all the incentive needed for seven of our swimmers to take a short trip out to Calne to take part in their inaugural ‘Last Chance’ meet on Saturday 7th November.

Calne were very welcoming and also very busy with all hands to the pump to get the new electronic timing equipment installed. There was more gaffer tape poolside than parents as they all elected to go upstairs and view the event from the gallery/bar. This made for a somewhat subdued atmosphere on poolside.

The swimmers did not seem to notice (Parents: they can’t hear you when you shout anyway!) and we recorded lots of personal best swims.

Of the seven swimmers who took part (Aaron, Alyssa, Alyx, Max A, Olivia, Rory & Tyler) in 20 swims, 15 acheived personal best times.
Eight of the times recorded were county qualifying times and two were regional qualifying times.
A successful day out on the medal front, 5 Gold, 4 Silver and 6 Bronze.

Thank you to Calne for the invite and putting on the event. Thank you to the officials, thank you to Sarah and Kelly for
organising our entries, and your support on the day.