Well what a weekend! This report covers our journey to an awesome, well deserved promotion back into Division one!
Berkshire and South Buckinghamshire County Team builds on last years 14th place, and makes it one place better in Division One!Saturday saw us meeting for the eighth year running at Wycombe Sports Centre at 11:00 on the Saturday before the event and head for the Intensive Training Centre at Loughborough University to train. This year brought news on Friday morning that Merissa Booth was unable to swim due to ill health, so we welcomed Jenna Lee Campbell Byrne into the team as our first reserve. Thanks to Jason Keeler for turning around the invitation so quickly, and for Jenna and her family for making everything happen.
Travelling with the team this year was Our County Assistant Coach, Adam Barrett, with Beverley Skelton, our County President, Sam Dyson and Devon Wilks who were our travelling County Officials. Alex Vine, our County Coach was on the Swim England National Development Programme, along with five of our team. They joined us at the Jury's Inn later that evening
We arrived at Loughborough for our training session in the pool adorned with the names of Loughborough's Olympians and world record holders we went to the Student Union building to stock up on water and snacks for the next day's racing. Once at the hotel and having had dinner the team congregated to Suite 3 to take on various team challenges before lights out at 21:30 to get ready for the next days racing. It is worthy of note that this team of young swimmers and staff excelled themselves at one of the particular team games that evening. Well done everyone!
With a 07:20 rise , breakfast, team talk, face paints, fancy dress and photos, and a 100% rain weather forecast we decided to take the coach to Ponds Forge. Following warm up, the Captains of B&SB - Charlotte Stevenson and Cameron Booker, wearing full fancy dress with a stag's head, led the opening ceremony, cheered in magnificently by the rest of our team. Then it was down to some serious swimming for every point.
Our goal was to reconfirm our presence in Division One and try to improve our position! Berkshire and South Buckinghamshire County team has always punched above its weight, and doing that again was our aim.
33% of all our individual swims were Personal Bests- some as significant as 6.0 seconds against his entry for Alex Cooper in the 100m breaststroke for the 12/13 years boys; 0.5 seconds for Ali Castle in the 100m breaststroke for 14/15 years old; 1.33 seconds for Sammy Tucker in 14/15 years 100m fly and 0.23 seconds for Jenna Lee Campbell Byrne in the 14/15 years 100m freestyle to mention a few. 33% of the swims delivered 10 and above points which provided us with a very strong base to the event. By the mid point break at event 17, we were placed in 11th position and danced around 11th to 13th place for the rest of the meet with 42% of our swims attracting 5 to 9 points, resulting in a total of 75% of swims placing well out of the relegation zone of 17th place and below.
The best team performance came from the Boys 16/17 medley relay ( Cameron Booker, Nikolai Khutoryanskiy, Eliot Desforges and Silas Mendez) placing 5th in a time of 1:45.95
We ended overall in 13th place, 13 points behind Ox & N Bucks, and 3 points ahead of Suffolk in 14th! Well done to everyone in the team who swam brilliantly and conducted themselves with dedication, professionalism and a great team spirit.
Thank you to Devon Wilks and Sam Dyson for officiating - we couldn't have done what we did without you; Alex Vine supported by Adam Barrett for creating the environment over the last two days that allowed all that happened to happen; and last but not least our County President, Beverley Skelton who not only supported me brilliantly as a Team Manager but also enjoyed the cheering throughout - such a contrast to the serene and respectful quiet to the synchro pool.
I wish you all the best for this coming year!
Joan Scarrott. County Team Manager.
| SWIMMERS | ||||
| BOYS | GIRLS | |||
| George Mann | Wycombe | Bethany Hunt | Wycombe | |
| Timur Gulyiyen | Wycombe | Charlotte Stevenson | Bracknell | |
| James McClenn | Wycombe | Daria Poma Kostik | Maidenhead | |
| Jamie Owen | Amersham | Eleanor Cowen | Wycombe | |
| Jan Poulton | Wycombe | Emilia Sansome | Wycombe | |
| Kaleb Fox Jones | Newbury | Isobel Benster | Maidenhead | |
| Luca Staines | Wycombe | Megan Daley | Wycombe | |
| Sam Phippen | Wycombe | Mirabelle Waters | Chesham | |
| Sammy Tucker | Wycombe | Olivia Lee | Chalfont | |
| Silas Mendez | Reading | Rebecca McMenemy | Reading | |
| Thomas Dean | Maidenhead | Sadie Lucas | Chalfont | |
| Thomas Sansome | Wycombe | Sophie Lawrence | Amersham | |
Team Coach
Nigel Willis
Team Manager
Joan Scarrott
Technical Officials
t.b.c.
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