A huge well done to everyone who took part in the gala yesterday. As you know, we came in 3rd place, only 3 points behind Ealing in 2nd place and 18 points behind Anaconda in 1st place.
Everyone swam fantastically; the fact that we got 11 x 1st places, 11 x 2nd places and 4 x 3rd places out of 46 events demonstrates that.
1st places went to:
- Charlotte 100m freestyle
- Dan50m breaststroke
- Joshua25m breaststroke
- Rachel 25m fly
- Jasmine 25m backstroke
- Lily 25m freestyle
- Loulou 25m freestyle
- Boys 4 x 2L freestyle relay team of Gabriel, Joshua, Dan & Joe
- Boys 4 x 2Lmedley relay team of Gabriel, James. Jonathan & Dan
- Boys 4 x 1L freestyle relay team of Matthew, Ewan, Joshua & Gabriel
- Girls 4 x 1L freestyle relay team of Loulou, Amina, Latisha & Safaa
2nd places went to:
- Jonathan 100m breaststroke
- Jasmine 50m backstroke
- Kieran50m backstroke
- Gabriel 25m backstroke
- Safaa in both 25m backstroke and in 50m freestyle
- Girls 4 x 2L medley relay team of Sarah, Rachel, Charlotte & Demera
- Girls 4 x 1L medley relay team of Hannah, Sarah, Latisha & Amina
- Girls 4 x 1Lbreaststroke relay team of Rachel, Hannah M-B, Sarah & Jasmine
- Girls 4 x 1Lfreestyle relay team of Katherine, Hannah M-B, Demera & Charlotte
- Girls 8 x 1L freestyle relay team of Jasmine, Amina, Loulou, Hannah M-B, Katherine, Lily, Safaa & Hannah
3rd places went to:
- Matthew in both 50m freestyle & 25m backstroke
- Demera 50m freestyle
- Loulou 25m breaststroke
In fact EVERYONE who swam either got a 1st, 2nd or 3rd in an individual event or was in a 1st, 2nd or 3rd placed relay team, so everyone contributed to the team’s performance.
There were some great individual swims, with new PBs gained on 18 of the 32 individual events. The new 50 metre PB’s and Club Records are posted here. On the night the new PBs were as follows:
- 100m freestyle Charlotte
- 100m breaststroke Hannah & Jonathan
- 50m freestyle Safaa & Matthew
- 50m breaststroke Rachel & Dan
- 50m backstroke Jasmine, Sarah & Kieran
- 50m fly Hannah
- 25m freestyle Loulou, Dan & Joshua
- 25m breaststroke Katherine & Joshua
- 25m backstroke Gabriel
- 25m fly Joe
Hannah set a new club record for U14 girls 100m breaststroke, Sarah for U12 girls 50m backstroke, Kieran for U16 boys 25m breaststroke and Joshua for U12 boys 25m freestyle.
There were upgrades on 13 events in total and with fewer upgrades, we could very easily have won this gala. Some of the upgrades were to a certain extent inevitable, in that we simply didn’t have enough of our younger boys available on the day and so some of the events and relays were swum by swimmers who we always knew were likely to be upgraded. But most of the upgrades were due to people swimming faster than they had ever thought possible and shaving a second or more off their PBs. For example, ifone of our boyshad swum just 100th of a second slower in his race, this would have been a 1st place rather than an upgrade, which would have put us in 2nd place overall,so this shows just how close it was!
Well done everyone and thank you as always to the parents for their support.
Best wishes,
Jenny
P.S. If you are all still on a high from this gala, don’t forget to put the dates of our next 2 galas in your diaries now. These are our last graded league gala of the season in Leyton on 12 November and the Jim Savory Trophy gala in Enfield on 19 November. Teams will be selected nearer the time, butmany of you (especially the boys) are likely to be asked to swim in one or both of these galas, so if you know already that you will not be available for either, please let me know now as this will help with team selection.