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Junior Speedo Round 2 (8th May 2005)
With 5 top swimmers (Senner, Oliver, Chris, Annie, and Holly) unable to compete as they were racing at Beckenham Designated meet or away for other reasons, two swimmers who pulled out on Sunday morning due to illness and one swimmer unable to attended because of a family christening, a highly talented group of Harlow Penguin swimmers STILL came 4th in today's Junior Speedo Round 2 gala held at a noisy Harlow pool.
The team selection was based on recent time trials with debut swims given to Amy Kilcare and Adam Dunkley and a welcome return from a recent broken arm (again!) Jamie Ilic. The small team (23 swimmers only - a normal squad is 32!!) battled well to secure 142 points with only 6 disqualifications. Four of these were for swimming overage swimmers as we currently only have one, instead of four, competing 9 year old boys - the very impressive Matthew Walton.
First places were extremely hard to achieve today but nevertheless against a very strong Kingston Royals team we still managed to secure 4 outright wins. Congratulations to Luke Marioni (10yrs 50m free), Ria Melvin (10yrs 50m breast), Jenna Batorski (12yrs 50m breast) and the boys 10yrs 4x 25m freestyle relay team who all came 1st (Ellis Foot, John Reynolds, Luke Marioni and Ryan Wolfe).
Out of the 49 races, Kinston Royals dominated the Gala winning 40 outright. Harlow Penguins came 1st in four races but second in ten, third in four, fourth in eight, fifth in fourteen and sixth in only three races.
Coach, Carol Melvin, was very proud of all the swimmers and how well they swam. Their behaviour, concentration and team participation was excellent as well as their individual racing. Carol will report back to Alan Mitchell (who was at the designated meet in Beckenham) and give a run down of all our young stars.
Times, splits and positions can be found here - splits for relay races will
not go towards personal best times. Lesley Foot will update the personal best
database when next convenient
A big thanks to the following people who helped out. The first four heroes had no children competing but still sacrificed their Sunday roast to help out!! Paul Cooper (announcer - proper mike was vandalised so had to use Eric's mega horn!!), Paul Davidson (Chief Timekeeper), Alan Canham (Referee) and Eric Sheppard (Starter). Also a big thanks to these people for making the gala a success; Carol Melvin (Coach), Luke Clifton (debut timekeeper), Karen Gladish (debut splits), Dean Marioni (recorder), Anne Reynolds (recorder), Deborah Thompson (front desk), Rhona Batorski (drinks), Matt Cooper (relay takeover at far end) and a special thanks to Emily Reynolds who is a first class team manager!