Development Meet Two in Seven Towers Leisure Centre, Ballymena.
Five of our swimmers from the Junior and Intermediate squads travelled to Ballymena to compete in this gala. These Development galas are designed to ease novice swimmers into the competition environment and are important in so far as they give swimmers experience of competing with swimmers from swimming clubs throughout Ulster. Each swimmer is aiming to set and establish a PB or Personal Best time in each event that they choose to compete in.
All swimmers swam in events ranging in distance from 100 to 200 meters. They all swam well returning times that they were happy with. This is a challenging environment for a few reasons. They are against swimmers they do not know. They are being monitored by Swim Ulster officials who issue disqualification tickets if they spot technical infringements. While in training they cover the distance many times, on this occasion they are on their own, going fast and the fear of getting the count wrong, running out of energy and messing up on turns is very real. Going to competition is the way to overcome these fears and gain experience.
Caolan Roberts swam in 3 events, returning a 10 sec’s PB in 200 breaststroke and 20sec’s PB in his 200 IM, and his 100 Backcrawl time was also very good. Caolan was very pleased with his times and performance. Deirdre O’Harte was first in her age group and when returning to her coach said “I could have gone faster.” Deirdre swam the 200m frontcrawl and won a gold medal on the way. Conal Duffy, was really out of his comfort zone. As this was Conal’s first big competition, where he swam very well, battled hard and the coach was happy with his performance. Enri Shiels swam in the 100m Individual Medley and 100 Backcrawl, and achieved his estimated entry time, thus achieving PB’s. Lui Shiels, swam in the 100 IM and the 200 breaststroke. He really tried hard and was just off his entry time in the 200 Breaststroke, but achieving a PB in the IM. Chatting with their coach after their events, it was identified that more work technical work needed to be done, an increase in all the swimmers focus when at training and that work on turns was critical, so that their performances will improve and for times to keep tumbling. More practice for all our swimmers and all are encouraged to swim in the club record gala on the 20 Dec 2014.
PS The coach is looking for a Sat Nav!
Club Record Gala
This internal gala is scheduled for Saturday the 20th Dec 2014, starting at 5 pm. The entry sheets are on the club notice board, and ALL SWIMMERS in the club are encouraged to enter. The information sheet also on the notice board, explains the gala structure.
Development Squad. Open to New Members.
The club have a swimmer development squad. This is for swimmers who have attained Level 5 or higher in the Swim Ireland lesson process. We train every Saturday morning from 8 to 9 am in Monaghan Leisure Centre. We are open to new members. Those that are making good progress we will move up to our Junior Aqua Squad and these swimmers train twice a week – Thursday evening and Sunday Morning. These swimmers represent the club in the Aqua Sprint League against other clubs in Ulster. For more Information contact Claire at 087 2909777 or Ita at 086 8706733.
Christmas Swim Times
Please check the club notice board and web-site for the Christmas & New Year Training schedule.