National Championships 2015
Seven Bluefins swimmers headed up to Sheffield during the first two weeks in August to compete in the prestigious British Summer Championships and English National Championships.
Just to qualify for these events is a real challenge and honour for swimmers up and down the country, and the Bluefins swimmers did themselves proud, with a few even making finals!
Proceedings kicked off with the British Summer Championships competition, and the club had four swimmers competing in this. Each event consists of the top 24 ranked swimmers in Britain in various age groupings. Finlay Evans raced in the 100 & 200 Freestyle events and put in some solid performances, particularly as he had been suffering from some illness leading up to the competition. Finlay’s best race was in the 100 Freestyle in which he set off at a blistering pace and narrowly missed his entry time by a slender point 2 of a second.
Mairead Barker competed in both the 100 and 200 metre Breastroke events, with the 200 event being first. Mairead attacked the race right from the off, and actually hit the halfway mark in a time under her lifetime best for the shorter 100 metre event! She continued to push on in great form to achieve a personal best time of 2.37.90, over a second faster than her entry time. This was enough to secure her a well deserved place in the final. She raced hard in the final event but wasn’t able to equal the superb time she registered in the heats. She did however maintain her ranked position that she went into the final on. Mairead also competed in the 100 metre Breastroke sprint event on the last day of the championships. Putting up a tough fight considering feeling under the weather with the onset of a cold, she recorded a respectable time of 1.16.17. This was less than half a second away from her lifetime best she had set as a split in the 200 metre event she swam at the beginning of the championships.
As with Mairead, Mitchell Coombes also competed in the 200 metres Breastroke event. He attacked the race with a good first 100 metres and recorded a time which was just shy of his entry time. This was Mitchell’s first taste of a Summer Nationals Championship event, and bearing in mind he started the season last September with a time over 5 seconds slower than his entry time, it’s safe to say we’ll be seeing more of this Breastroke specialist at subsequent National championships!
Adam Milne, one of the club’s most experienced competitiors at National level, ensured that he would continue his run of being a national finalist, as he has been for a number of years! Adams best event was the 50 Backstroke, where he recorded a lifetime best in the heats with a time of 27.20, and went on to compete in the final, getting agonisingly close to his heat swim time, by being just .03 off! Adam also raced in the 100 metre Backstroke and Butterfly events, putting in strong performances in both, with neither being more than a second away from his entry time.
With the first week’s racing having come to an end, it was now the turn of the ASA National Summer Championships to take centre stage. These events comprised of the top 20 English swimmers in various age groups, with the proviso that if a swimmer had already competed in an event at the proceeding British Summer Championships, they were not eligible to compete in that same event in this competition.
Alfie Evans was the first Bluefins swimmer to step up to the starting blocks in these championships, and he certainly rose to the occasion. Recording a lifetime best in the heats, he did a fantastic job securing a place in the final. His swim in the final was sensational, and for the first time ever he ducked under the 64 second mark, recording a time of 1.03.90.
Next up to race were Bluefins Performance Squad members, Daisy Moore and Molly Goffin, both competing in the 200 metre Breastroke event. Both girls gave everything they had at this, their first ever National Championships, with Daisy recording a time within a second of her entry time, and Molly hitting a 2.48 for the very first time. Molly was agonisingly close to securing a place in the final of this event, narrowly missing out by the smallest of margins, .04 seconds to be exact!
Daisy also competed in what is frequently considered to be one of the toughest of all the events, the 400 Metres Individual Medley. Her heat swim was good enough to qualify her for the final, but deep down she knew she could pull something more out for the final race – and she certainly didn’t disappoint! With a cracking first leg of Butterfly, she went on to go 6 seconds faster overall than her heat swim.
In conclusion, a big well done to all the Bluefins swimmers who raced at Nationals over the last couple of weeks. After a short rest they’ll be back in the pool at the start of next month, getting ready to push themselves on even further and faster than before!
