Wiltshire County Sprints

Judging by the smiles on the coach’s faces I think we did well!

Sunday 10th July 2016 – rearranged Wiltshire county Sprints held at the Milton Road Health Hydro.

Some absolutely stupendous swims – We like to sprint and it seems we are getting a lot lot better at it!
The focus on technique is paying off..

11 gold medals, 7 silver and 9 bronze! WOW!
That’s just the medals – there were also fifteen 4th place finishes and 9 swimmers finishing 5th.

The Junior relay kicked things off after the usual ‘technical difficulties’. Sasha Stone with a monumental underwater phase handed over to Aaron Bailey for the backstroke. Aaron to Rowan Kitchener for the breaststroke, Rowan to Alexander Stone. Alex to Liberty Slowly for the butterfly, Liberty to Tyler Checchia. Tyler to Bethany Brewer for the freestyle and Beth over to Andrew Dolman. A great effort by all the swimmers, but only enough to warrant 5th place.

We were then into the individual events starting with the boys backstroke.
Max Sullivan (10) not his favourite stroke, and definitely an area we need to work on still managed to come 5th. Joe Warrington disqualified for an unmissable flyer. Harvey Stone (11) seemed to have forgotten how to race, nothing like his summer and winter league performances 12th overall. Aaron Bailey (12) started the flow of medals winning bronze. Tyler Checchia judged the finish perfectly taking gold in his age group (13) and 2nd place in the junior championship.
Alyx Bailey (16) also took gold and a place in the open final. Tomas Starsmeare-Ferris taking bronze in same age group.

In the final Alyx took another half a second off his time to come 3rd.

Girls Breaststroke
The younger girls, Molly Checchia (9) in her first County Sprint event , Alyssa Halliday (10) and Annabel Ollerhead (11) all swam well, but were beaten into fourth place. Recently transferred Thea Rhodes (11) finished narrowly behind Annabel to take 5th spot. Alice Steckerl (12) finished 7th and Emmie Raine came 12th.
Caitlin Warrington with a somewhat slow tempo start, remembered the advice from regional’s and stepped up the pace to take gold in the 13 years age group and 2nd place in the junior championship. Can’t imagine what would have happened if she had swam with her fingers somehwere near each other! Sasha Stone and Olivia Moore finished 6th and 7th inthe 13 years.
Rowan Kitchener with an absolutely enormous underwater phase won bronze in the 14 years age group. Liberty Slowly went one better taking silver in the 15.
Grace Steckerl (16) stepped it up again, taking gold and a place in the final. Lydia Zioupos (17) was place 4th in the 17/18 age group.
Grace swam faster still in the championship final, a time of 24.49 enough to get 3rd place.

Boys Butterfly
Mas Sullivan (10) likes butterfly! He likes to win races, combine these two things and you get a gold medal at 10 years! Joe Warrington disqualified again for a false start.
Harvey Stone (11) recovered some of his Moonraker smarts to finish 5th. Aaron won another bronze in the 12 years age group. Tyler won gold again in the 13 years age group. This was also enough to see him win the Junior Championship and a place in the Open final.
Tomas and Alyx finished 3rd and 4th in the 16 years age group.

In the championship final Tyler swam the same time 20.21 as his qualifying heat to finish 4th.

Girls Freestyle
First swim for Alexandra Scutt (9) in a county sprint event, a solid 4th place. Molly Checchia (9) finished 6th.
Alyssa Halliday (10) was place 9th and Verity Pocock 16th.

Thea Rhodes and Annabel swapped things around, Thea in 4th and Annabel 5th. Amy Jones finished 21st.
Alice Steckerl was 5th in the 12 years age group, Emmie Raine 12th.
Sasha, Caitlin and Olivia finished 8th, 9th and 16th in a closely contested 13 years age group battle.

Beth got into the medals taking bronze in 14 years, pushing Rowan out to 5th place. This earned Beth a 5th place in the Junior Championship.
Liberty took Gold in the 15 years age group.

Somewhat surprising to see Grace just outside the medals in the freestyle, 4th.
Lydia Zioupos was up against the regional swimmers from Chippenham and Trowbridge and did well to take bronze in the 17/18 years age group.

LUNCH

After lunch, and warm-up we started things off with the Mixed Open 8 x 1L Mixed medley. Our team comprised of BK: Lydia & Alyx, BR: Grace & Tomas, BF: Liberty & Brad, FC: Beth & Tyler
So a couple of juniors, but what juniors!
Closely contested by the three teams (eh where was everyone?) involved. We came 2nd. Well done team!

Girls Backstroke
The 9 year olds were back in the pool. Alexandra Scutt winning her first county medal, taking silver. Molly finished 5th.
Alyssa Halliday (10) finished 9th.
Thea and Annabel let somebody come between them on this event. Thea coming 4th and Annabel 6th.
There was also one swimmer separating Alice and Emmie (12) place 11th and 13th.
All change in the 13 years age group. Olivia finishing ahead of Sasha and Caitlin – 8th, 10th and 13th.
Beth took silver in the 14 years age group. Liberty just outside the medals taking 4th place in the 15 years.
Grace back in the medals with bronze in the 16’s. Lydia pushed out of the medals to 4th in the 17/18 years.

Boys Breaststroke

Max Sullivan likes breaststroke almost as much as he likes butterfly. He likes it even more when he wins gold, which he did.
Joe managed to wait for the starting signal and finished in 9th place.
Harvey Stone (11) is not so keen on breaststroke but that did not stop him taking 8th place.
Brother Alex Stone (12), narrowly beat Aaron Bailey. The Swindon swimmers placed 9th and 10th.

Tyler won another gold and took 3rd place in the junior championship.

In the 16 years age group we knew it was going to be a close contest between Alyx and Tomas. Tomas despite a somewhat slow start to his heat took gold, Alyx silver. Both Swindon swimmers earning a place in the open championship final.
In the final, Tomas took 1 hundredth of a second off his heat time, Alyx .44. This was enough to earn Tomas 2nd place in the championship and Alyx 3rd place.

Girls Butterfly
Molly Checchia, Alyssa Halliday and Annabel Ollerhead must have had the same game plan. All saved their best performance until last. Molly with a fine 4th place finish in the 9 years age group. Alyssa taking bronze in the 10 years and Annabel finally getting in the medals taking silver in the 11 years.
Thea not far behind Annabel finishing 4th.
Alice came in 10th in the 12 years age group. All change again with the 13 year olds, Sasha, Caitlin and Olivia – 8th, 14th, 15th.
Not much separating Rowan and Beth (14) either who finished 5th and 6th.
Liberty took silver in the fly (15). Lydia was again placed 4th (17/18).

Boys Freestyle
Max Sullivan was narrowly beaten into 4th place. Joe Warrington finished 9th. Harvey Stone (11) was 8th. Aaron came 7th and Alexander Stone 14th.

Back on the medal trail, another gold for Tyler and the fastest time from anyone at the club. This was still only fast enough to get 4th in the junior championship (still 2 years left for Tyler as a junior).

Tomas narrowly beat swimmers from Marlborough and Durrington to take silver, Alyx finished 5th.

Congratulations everyone.
Thank you to Sarah, Peter and Frank for your poolside assistance.
Big thank you to Sarah and Kelly for organising entries.

Thank you parents for your support.

Thank you officials and Wiltshire ASA for helping to stage the event.

Finally thank you to the swimmers. It is you all the ‘grown-ups’ do this for. You all did the club proud with you attitude, behaviour and performance.

Coaching Team
Swindon ASC

Full Results available here