Great Success for Sliabh Beagh at Swim Ulster Development Gala

Fifteen swimmers from the club attended this gala. One was unable to make it due an unforeseen family event. In total 168 swimmers were entered from West, Mid and South Ulster.

Events Included 200 IM, 200 Freestyle, 100 Freestyle, 100 Breaststroke, 50 Butterfly, 100IM, and 100 Backstroke.

Our swimmers did very well overall. Several medals were won but more importantly swim times in most strokes got faster. This Improvement is a combination of better fitness, better skill, experience and also growth and strength Improvements.

From a coaching and swimmer improvement perspective some things need attention urgently. These are 1. Breakout from underwater into swim, must be managed without taking a breath at the key exit moment. Doing this kills momentum and grievously impedes speed. 2. Starting reaction time and then the flight, followed by the entry, all need work to ensure efficiency. 3. Unnecessary head movement – this has a number of variations. These are; looking around to see where you are; turning the head too much in order to get a breath; Head position in breaststroke and butterfly during the inhalation phase. 4. Drop off in speed between the first 25 or 50m and the following 25 or 50m sections in the race.

The above needs other be addressed urgently. Why? If not, swimming skill improvement will be negatively impacted upon very soon in the early stage of the swimmers career, resulting in dropout. So coaches need to be up to speed, but more importantly, the swimmers and parents need to discuss this with the coach and have a team approach to fixing the problem.

However, overall this was a great first meet of the season for this level of swimmer. We were delighted with the effort, the many attempts to do it correctly and the social interaction with which our swimmers deported themselves. So we’ll done all. List of swimmers and results follow:

In attendance representing the club were Margaret O’Flaherty (Team Manager), Breige O’Caolain, Claire Sheridan, Sylvia Gillis, Sinead Madden, Grainne Curran, Paula Kavanagh, Emer McKenna, Simon Lynch, Terry Duffy, Susan McGeough and Ita O’Hara.

Well done to all our swimmers.