the asa National County Team Championships 2009

Webmaster's note: I received a message from Liz Waddy, the team manager: "The team did very well."   Sums it up really.

County Coach Nigel Willis writes:

Berks & South Bucks County Team manager Liz Waddy and Coach Nigel Willis travelled up to Sheffield for the National Inter County Team Championships, with a team of 25 swimmers. The challenge for the Team this year was to better last year's 10th placed result and this was achieved with an excellent 5th place finish. This was an amazing result, the best ever finishing position for the County. The entire team performed very well and everyone played their part to the full.

There were some excellent swims, with a large number of personal best times being achieved. The County achieved a number of top six places and some excellent relay results. This year the competition was hosted by two international swimmers David Carry and Ross Davenport who got the swimmers into the spirit of the competition by organising a mexican wave and interviewing swimmers.

The day was highly entertaining, with a grand parade of County ASA banners at the start of the event.

The atmosphere during the racing was electric as the Ponds Forge pool, splits from its normal 50m into two 25m pools, Division 1 in one pool and Division 2 in the second, with starts interleaving means that something was always going on. 38 teams from across the UK meant that one entire side of the spectator area was team seating with a blaze of team colours and banners.

Finishing in 5th place was really an excellent result, beaten only by Lancashire, Yorkshire, Middlesex and Northumberland and Durham.

Well done to all the swimmers.

County placings: (full division 1 detailed results on the asa website, as are division 2)

Team List:

Results:

Berks & S Bucks results from the 2009 National Inter County Gala, 17th October 2009

(there are 2 manual splits *, the rest of the 50m times are from the AOE)

© Berks & South Bucks ASA 2008, 2009