Royal Commonwealth Pool Edinburgh (13-15th Dec 2019)
The Scottish National Championships in Edinburgh has been the main focus this short course term for the best DASC Top Squad swimmers. Six of them journeyed to the Royal Commonwealth Pool in Edinburgh to compete in an event attracting several GB Internationals including Freya Anderson, Duncan Scott and Ross Murdoch.Glen Fenby, DASC coach, had prepared them well, with all bar one swimmer (Jack Hurworth who very unfortunately was ill and not able to perform to the best of his ability), recording at least one PB swim over the course of the weekend. All the events were Open, ie not swum in age groups.
Harriet Rogers made the “A” Final in the 50m Butterfly with a time of 28.13 and in the night final she produced another PB to finish 6thwith a time of 27.95. However, on her race finish Harriet managed to bend her finger and required treatment overnight for a possible fracture. In the morning with a badly swollen finger she swam 50m freestyle in a time of 25.84 and again made the “A” final on the evening where she swam 25.55 to claim the bronze medal, a superb achievement in this level of competition. This was the fastest time set by a 15-year-old at the Championships and is a NER record. Her 100m Freestyle and 100m Butterfly times were very close to her PB times and were both the 3rdfastest by 15-year olds on the day.Harriet returned home on Sunday, had a quick trip to A&E to check that her finger was not broken, and then set off the next day to the other end of the country to take part in a 4-day Swim England National Event Camp at Millfield School in Somerset.
Harriet Rogers made the “A” Final in the 50m Butterfly with a time of 28.13 and in the night final she produced another PB to finish 6thwith a time of 27.95.
Will Beukenholdt goes on and on improving across all strokes, setting another 4 PB times during the weekend on 100m Freestyle, 50m and 100m Breaststroke and 100m IM. In the 100m Breaststroke, he proved that his recent brilliant club gala record time in the event had not been a fluke by clocking 1.07.74. He laid to rest his recent NER disqualification in 100m IM to also break through the 60 second barrier in 100m IM in 59.99 sec. Oh the difference that one-hundredth of a second makes!
It was great to see hard-working Molly Mooney produce her first Breaststroke PB times in 2019 at all three distances in one weekend with the 200m time of 2.45.80 knocking over 2 seconds off her previous best.
Alfie Elliott swam two great Butterfly races to produce a PB in each, and finally achieve his long-held ambition of breaking the 60 second barrier on 100m to lower his previous PB by over a second to 59.58, which is a very significant improvement at this level.
Johnson Bache swam in his first-ever 800m Freestyle in a licensed gala on the Friday and was disappointed with his swim as it was well outside his long course time for the event. After some remedial work with Glen on his tumble turns, he returned the next day for the 1500m Freestyle, going through the 800m mark 7 seconds quicker than the day before and going on to produce a great 2 second PB of 17.12.77. He is to be congratulated on a lesson well learned and picking himself up to try again.
‘It was a fantastic weekend and to see DASC swimmers win heats, produce pbs and win medals at this level of competition just makes all the hard work worth it from swimmers to parents and to coaches. Well done all.’
Comment – Glen Fenby, Head Coach