Bristol Henleaze Swimming Club

The first four sessions of the 2011 Gloucester Blocks age group events took place at GL1 on 12th/13th  February. It was a great weekend for the club with many fine swims and some really good times. There were 85 swims in total with a very good 69 PB’s. The swimmers as always behaved beautifully and gave team mates their full support.

In the 9 years girls age group Alysia Maestri in her first serious competition swam superbly to win gold medals in the 50m free and 50m breast plus a top 8 medal in the 200m free; in the breaststroke she set a new age group best time and she was only nine a few days ago. Alysia has had a great start to her swimming career. She was ably supported in this age group by Oriana Munden who won two top 8 medals being placed 4^th in the 50m free and 6^th in the 200m free. In the 11 year girls age group Jorji Longdon continued to dominate in the longer events and some exceptional swimming netted her 3 golds in the 200m free, 200m IM and 400m IM to add to the two golds she won in the distance events (800m and 1500m free) in December. Also in this age group Ellen O’Regan won a finalist medal with a 6^th place in the 50m breast. In the 12 year girls age group Charley Waters won a finalist medal with 7^th place in the 50m fly. In the 13 year girls age group Abi Bowring was in top form despite a broken finger! and exceptionally won seven gold medals, a clean sweep. Championship finals are held in every event for the top eight 12&over girls (13&over for boys). Abi qualified for the championship finals in the 50m back, 50m breast, 100m IM and 400m IM. In the 400m IM final she took an excellent 3^rd place and was crowned county junior champion. In this age group Abi was supported by Morgane Sha’ban who won a finalist medal in the 50m back. In the 16 year girls age group Jane Garry continues to make very good progress and was rewarded with gold in the 50m breast and bronzes in the 50m free, 50m fly and 100m IM. Our lady Captain Rebecca Allen chipped in with silver in the 18 year girls 50m free.

 In the 11 years boys age group Barnaby Taylor won silver in the 50m breast and Sam Marshall won silver in the 50m freestyle. In addition Sam won two top eight medals in the 200m free (4^th just missing out on a podium place) and 200m IM and Barnaby won a top 8 medal in the 50m free. In the boys 15 year age group Matt Eskell continues to impress and won bronzes in the 50m back and 50m fly. In the boys 16 year age group Oliver Eyre swam very strongly giving 100% effort as he always does to win three silvers in the 50m fly, 200m fly and 400m IM. Oliver also made the championship finals in the 400m IM (4^th) and 200m fly (5^th). In the 50m free Oliver won a bronze and tied for 8^th place overall so went into a swim off for the last championship final place and in probably the most exciting swim of the weekend he was beaten by 1/100^th of a second – you can’t get closer than that!

All results are on the BHSC Results Database and please remember that you need to register on the wesite to access it.

Thank you to Bob, Hilary, Kathryn, Kelly, Sandra, Tina and the club captains who looked after the swimmers.

Finally congratulations again to all swimmers who qualified, took part and gave us performances of which we can all be very proud.

Round 2 of the Cotswold League took place on Saturday 5^th Feb at Easton. Although we faced tough opposition, our swimmers rose to the challenge and gained PB’s in 22 of the individual events.  PB of the night goes to Ben Murphy who improved his time for 100 IM by a whopping 21seconds!

Individual winners on the night were:

Lara Coode, who won both freestyle and breaststroke in the 13/u age group, Jono Dixon in the 15/u 50m butterfly and Jo Rapoport in the 15/u 50m freestyle.  In the most exciting race of the night, Jono stormed past all of the other competitors in the final length, to win the 100m butterfly in the open age group.

At the end of the evening we finished in 4^th place with 94 gala points, but capped many new swimmers and gave valuable experience to our young team.  With our toughest 2 rounds behind us, we can look forward to Round 3 on Saturday March 19^th, when we will be hosting the gala at Backwell pool. Watch out for the team sheet which will be available soon.

Kathryn Wragg

Provisional results:

Bristol North          151

Cirencester           136

Cinderford             131

Bristol Henleaze    94