Swimmers spint their way into record books
Six new age group relay records were set at the Sharks Sprint Meet last weekend.Honours were equally split between Harbour Swim Club and the hosts, who both set three fastest times each.The opening event of the meet was the 4x50 freestyle relay and striking first was the eight and under Sharks girls quartet of Jessica Bruton, Logan Watson-Brown, Holly Bruton and Brynn Telenko, as they shaved a second off of their previous record to finish in 55.53 seconds.In the next age group, 9 and 10, it was the turn of the Harbour four of Emma Harvey, Lizzie Thresh, Alyssa Paynter and Ashley Irby, who managed to improve their record by two-and-a-half seconds to post a time of 2:21.28.The Sharks 11 and 12 age group girls D’Andra Seymour, Brittany Siddle, Nina Wehmeyer and Madelyn Moore - replied by improving their record by two seconds to 2:12.35.It was the boys’ turn next, in the same event, and the 9 and 10 Harbour quartet of Jude Moseley, Myles Packwood, Alex Bordage and Alex Pilgrim lowered the record by almost three seconds, to a new standard of 2:31.51.Rounding out the freestyle relays, the Sharks 13 and 14 boys relay of Shannon Botelho, Justin Ferreira, Ryan Robb and Philip Hagen clipped over half a second off the previous record in a time of 2:04.15.The 4x50 medley relays were the final event of the meet and the last record of the day was set by the 8 and under Harbour four of Finn Moseley, Jack Thorpe, Jack Harvey and Nick Pilgrim who smashed the old record by almost 12 seconds, setting a new standard of 3:50.03.The swimmers were limited to a maximum of three individual events for the meet. For the Sharks, it was the 8 and under pair of Holly Bruton and Keagan Woolley who topped their age group, each scoring three first places.In the next age group, 9 and 10 year, it was the Harbour trio of Emma Harvey, Ashley Irby and Alex Pilgrim who each came away with three first place finishes.The 11 and 12 year olds also saw three swimmers winning three events: Shannon Hassell and Brittan Moseley of Harbour and Jesse Washington of Sharks.In the older age groups, it was all the Shark swimmers: Philip Hagen (13 and 14) and Sophie Froud and Nick Patterson, both in the senior age group; who rounded out the list of swimmers taking 3 first places.The Dolphin Swim team started the season strong with 30 personal bests at the Sharks Spring meet.Highlights for the meet included: Neil Budge (8) placing first in two of his three events (earning 19 points tops for DST); Genevieve Lau (8) placing first in two of her three races; Brett Smith (9) achieving an ‘A’ time in winning the 50m backstroke; Tate Crofts placing first in two of her three events; Tyler Dickinson (13) and Cathal Rynne (13) getting PB’s in all three of their races.Coach Elise Cooper said: “Exciting races for me were Maddie Irvine’s 100 individial medley. Her finish was spectacular. Also exciting was Brett Smith’s 50 Back. He not only won his age group, he finally obtained the “A” time he has been working so hard for.“And I would like to say that all my juniors were impressive in all the relays. I am very proud of all of them.National coach Richard Goodwin said: “This was the first meet of the season and it was great to see such a high level of competition and enthusiasm from all of the swimmers who participated in the meet.“I was particularly impressed with the excellent results of the younger swimmers they never fail to continually improve and impress”.The next meet on the BASA calendar is the Winter Series, slated for Saturday, November.Prior to that, BASA will be hosting a 12 hour swimathon on Saturday, November 5, the purpose of which is to raise funds for the refurbishment of the BASA pool facility.On Sunday, October 12, the Sharks Swim Club turned the focus to open water swimming, as they hosted the ever-popular Trunk Island Swim.A total of 99 swimmers braved choppy water conditions, as a result of a stiff, prevailing north-east breeze in order to complete the 1,325 metre event; swimming from the jetty on Trunk Island into the Palmetto Bay.