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Another swimming season is upon us and our first competitive outing was the Harding Paddock Memorial Gala for the Bristol Henleaze Shield on Saturday 11th September at Horfield. This gala is kindly sponsored by Mr Peter White and we thank him very much for this and it was a great pleasure to welcome Jack Harding an ex BHSC swimmer representing the family at the event. The gala was to national swimming league format with eight clubs taking part. We got off to a cracking start with the open 100m IM’s - Jane Garry was in a dead heat for first in a PB and Luke Porter won his race in a PB. It soon became apparent that our main rivals would be the team from Southwold. The lead changed hands several times until Oliver Eyre stormed away to win event 32 (the boys 15/under 100m freestyle) and we then pulled away to a comfortable win. We last won the Bristol Henleaze Shield in 2002 and it was great to see it coming home – Jack Harding presented the trophy to Rebecca Allen our ladies captain. All swimmers turned up and we had no less than 10 individual wins out of 34 events. The individual winners were Abi Bowring (2), Oliver Eyre (2), Sam Youngman, Sam Marshall, Jane Garry, Rebecca Allen, Luke Porter and Ashley St Leger. We had 5 wins in the relays and they were boys 11/under freestyle (Matthew Webley, Oscar Waugh, Barnaby Taylor and Sam Marshall), boys 11/under medley (Sam Youngman, Barnaby Taylor, Sam Marshall and Matthew Webley), the ladies open freestyle (Megan McLernon, Katie McLernon, Abi Bowring, Jess Hicks, Jane Garry and Rebecca Allen), the men’s open medley (Eddy Wragg, Luke Porter, Damian Williams and Ashley St Leger) and the final event of the evening the men’s freestyle ( Matt Eskell, Eddy Wragg, Luke Porter, Damian Williams, Oliver Eyre and Ashley St Leger). There were a good number of PB’s which is encouraging at the start of a season and the PB of the day was by Jess Hicks who improved her 100m fly time by 3.35 sec. All swimmers performed admirably and behaved impeccably and congratulations to you all. Thanks to all the helpers – Richard Edwards who worked very hard to organise a very successful event, Sandra O’Connor as always a brilliant team manager (we won’t mention the lane draw!), poolside helpers Hilary Marshall and Roger Kitteringham. Kathryn, Chris Wragg and Kevin Eyre who did a sterling job on recording the results (how come they get the best job again!), Mike Wragg who is making the job of starter his own, Alan Mitchell doing his usual impeccable job as time keeper, Judith Bush who did her usual fantastic job as announcer despite an equipment failure and Ruth Taylor for doing the door and raffle ably assisted by Pete Tanner and Fiona Garry. It was great to see our (sadly still injured) captain Guy Pearce there to support the team and do the important job of taking round the drinks for the officials. The gala result was:- BHSC 327 Southwold 299 Clevedon 289 Keynsham 271 Bristol North 167 Backwell 157 Yeovil 154 Penguins 124 This was a great warm up for our National League galas the first of which is on Saturday 9th October at Hutton Moor so put the date in your diary, keep fit and well and train hard. |
