The Winter NER short course competition was held in Sunderland last
weekend. Thirteen Armthorpe swimmers
headed north to compete with the best from clubs such as Leeds, Sheffield,
Newcastle and Sunderland. The age group and youth/senior competitions are held
simultaneously in each side of a boomed 50 metre pool. Those of you who have been to Ponds Forge –
imagine the pool split as a 25metre pool with races happening in each end. Two lots of officials, starts, judges and
referees and coaches trying to keep an eye on what’s happening in both pools
and you can see it proves to be an incredibly busy weekend. This year there were no problems with
swimmers thinking their race had started when it was the other race, but we did
have all the lights go out during one event.
The senior end of the pool kept swimming as if nothing had happened but
the little 10 year old girls on their 100 breast event were a little more
surprised!
The weekend proved very successful for Armthorpe swimmers with a total
of 18 medals won (3 gold, 7 silver, 8 bronze).
In addition to this, we have 2 new swimmers achieve a sub 60 time for
the 100m Freestyle – Simon Kliment with a 58.21 and Georgia Wright with a 59.63
– fantastic achievement from both – Well done!
Age Group
Age group
events are 10-13 years for girls and 10-14 years for boys and are swum as heat
declared winner. Top 10 (finalist)
positions are mentioned below.
Of note
Simon Kliment achieved 2 golds, 2 silvers and 3 bronze medals and Ben Wright
achieved 4 silvers.
Simon Kliment:
100 Free 5th 200IM
2nd 100 Back 2nd 200 Fly 1st 400IM
3rd 200 Free 3rd
200 Back 1st 100 Fly 4th
Harvey Williamson:
100 Back 5th 200 Free 8th 200 Back 7th 400 Free 4th
Charlotte Howard:
400IM 8th 200 Free 8th 200 Back 6th 400 Free 3rd 100
Back 3rd 200 Fly 8th
Tilly Arrand:
400IM 9th 800 Free 9th
Ben Wright:
100 Free 2nd 200IM
7th 100 Back
2nd 200 Free 2nd 200 Back 2nd 400
Free 3rd
Lucy Clarke:
400 Free 8th 800 Free 4th 200 Fly 9th
Chantelle Waugh:
400 Free 10th
Other age
group swimmers competing: Lauren Christmas
Junior and Senior
Junior and
Senior events are swum together with the top 10 combined reaching the
final. Juniors are 14 and 15 year old
girls and 15 year old boys. As usual
Jarvis Parkinson pulled some fantastic swims out of the bag reaching 6 finals
and achieving 3 medals. Georgia Wright
also pulled some fantastic PBs out on all her freestyle swims and achieved
bronze in 400 and 800 freestyle. The
Junior and Senior program is incredibly tough with heats for 50, 100 and 200 in
all events, plus 400 and 800/1500 free and 200 and 400IM swum over just 2
sessions. Those who have qualified for
multiple events need to be incredibly disciplined with warm-ups, swim downs and
nutrition over the weekend in order to ensure they are race ready for all
events. Add finals in to the mix and it
becomes a gruelling weekend with over 20,000metres of swimming for some of our
top athletes (with warm up and swim downs) .
Results
below are for top 10 finishes in either Junior or Senior:
Jarvis Parkinson:
100 Free 4th
200 Fly 3rd
200 Breast 1st
200 Free 4th 200IM 4th 200 Back 2nd
Georgia Wright:
200 Free 6th 400 Free 3rd 800
free 3rd
Heidi Smith
and Natasha Crow and Lauren Christmas also swam in multiple events.