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National Speedo Round 1 (Saturday October 8th 2005)
Tonight is one of the most eagerly awaited, most competitive and best nights on the swimming calendar - its similar to the third round of the FA Cup! However, tonight was slightly different than normal as this gala was swam by eight teams (at the 8x 25m lane pool in Hatfield). There were in excess of 250 swimmers, 16 coaches\team managers and 12 officials cramped around the poolside. The swimmers came from "Big clubs" such as Hatfield (eventual winners), West Suffolk, City of Cambridge, Camden Swiss Cottage, Teddington with three "smaller clubs" from Colchester, Phoenix (Basildon) and ourselves. Whilst the conditions were not ideal the atmosphere was electric and the standard of swimming was awesome. The pool had electronic scoring and a very capable sound system - the gallery looked packed with an excellent large and loud contingent from Harlow Penguins (including International support from Canada)!!
On the short coach journey from Harlow to Hatfield the
Penguins were told that they were expected to come at least 5th with no
disqualifications. 5th place was very important as it meant achieving 5 bonus
points almost making it impossible to be relegated to Division 2. To get 5th
place however meant that Harlow swimmers would have to beat one of the BIG
clubs which it did by beating Teddington into 6th by over 16 clear points!! An
added bonus, apart from the numerous personal bests, were that no swimmer was
disqualified - this is the fourth Speedo gala in a row that no swimmer has
been dq'ed!
First places were extremely hard to get with Hatfield and West Suffolk clubs
dominating the number one position. Nevertheless we did win four with Karl
Batorski winning the Mens 200IM and Mens 100m breast outright, Senner came
first in the "11 and under" 50m breaststroke and the excellent relay team of
Senner, Ryan, Chris and Oliver won the 9-11 yrs 4x 50m medley race outright
(this was a fantastic performance with the awesome foursome leading from the
beginning to the end!)
In addition to 4 firsts, we had 8 seconds, 4 thirds, 4 fourths, 6 fifths, 12 sixths, 10 sevenths and only 2 last positions. We will be looking at the sixth, seventh and eighth positions to see how we can strengthen the team for the next round.
A special thanks to Hayley (timekeeper), Alan (coach), Carol (Girls team manager), Eric (official) and Carmen (splits) for giving up their time and making sure we were well presented.
The official results can be found here - if you spot a mistake (we did change some of the relay orders) or perhaps want me to check a time (or split) email me and I will check. Lesley Foot will update the personal database in the near future (thanks Lesley).
Alan Mitchell was extremely proud of all the swimmers considering we had to swim many of the younger swimmers into older age groups and that we collected two injuries to two of the senior swimmers on poolside. Also a special well done to Master swimmers Nicole and Matt who made their debut swims in a Harlow team gala!!!