News MEDALS GALORE AT 2010 ULSTER AGE GROUP CHAMPIONSHIPS. 11/5/2010 This year City of Belfast Swimming Club (COBSC) had 7 individual qualifiers for the Championships with a further 5 swimmers taking part in relay events a total of 12 swimmers. Last season we ended up with 19 medals from 16 qualifiers. Although a smaller team, the quality of the swimming totally surpassed last year’s exploits. This year we introduced video analysis feedback for the swimmers for the first time to help them see their race and improve technique with instant corrections from the coaches. This has proved to be a valuable tool and really helped the swimmers maximise their performances. SESSION ONE, FRIDAY 7TH MAY. Three swimmers competed in the first of the weekend’s events the 200 individual medley (I/M). Hannah Beattie and Christina McDowell swam in the 10 year-old age group. Both set new personal best times. Christina swam 3.11.97, a huge 6 second personal best, whilst Hannah achieved a massive 11 second personal best (PB) with a time of 3.02.14. She won the silver medal on her way to an Irish Age Group (division 2) qualifying time (QT) even though she is still too young to compete at this level. Morgan Berryman represented COB in the boys 12 year age group and produced a silver medal winning performance in a time of 2.36 knocking 9 seconds off his previous PB and qualifying for Irish Age Groups in the process. COB came away with 2 silvers pretty good night’s work for only 3 swimmers competing. SESSION TWO, SATURDAY MORNING 8TH MAY. 100 Backstroke (B/C) and 200 Butterfly (B/F) were the events in this session and the girls 10 and under 4 x 50m medley relay. Hannah and Chrissie kicked off the morning by qualifying for the 100 B/C final with two PB’s both taking off 3 seconds. Morgan then followed suit with a 2 second PB and qualification for the final. Next the 200m B/F probably the toughest event of the weekend and COB were in the medals again. This time Hannah and Chrissie brought home a 1, 2 finish although not quite PB’s, a gold and silver was a great achievement. Morgan claimed a further silver for COB with a time of 2.44.72 and a solid 4 second PB. The final session began with Hannah and Chrissie taking 5th and 6th place respectively in the 10 year-old 100m B/C, with Chrissie claiming a further half second PB. Morgan took 6th place in his 100m B/C final. The final swim came from our 10 and under girls’ 4 x 50m medley team. Hannah led the team off on B/C and with a time of 41.72 which was also a 4 second PB. Sophie Hunter took over on the Breaststroke (Br/S) leg producing a fine sprint to solidify our second place position. Chrissie McDowell swam the Butterfly superbly with a strong finish to hand over to final leg swimmer Erin Blundell who’s progress this season has been phenomenal. Erin’s final leg Freestyle (F/S) sprint was clocked at 38.1 an astonishing swim and some 6 seconds faster than she has ever swam before. The girls managed an outstanding silver medal swim and not too far off gold. This session left COB with a tally of 1 gold, 5 silver so far for the weekend. SESSION THREE, SATURDAY AFTERNOON 9TH MAY. Events this session included 100m Br/s and 200m F/S. Sophie, Hannah, Sophie Hunter and Chrissie weere first up in the 10 year-old 100m Br/S. All three swimmers produced good swims to qualify for the final later on in the session. Carla Morelli was next up swimming in the 100m Br/S for the first time at this level and produced a fine swim and time. Ellen O’Neill finished off the girls event qualifying for the 11 year-old final with a swim of 1.31, a 5 second PB and leaving her in second place and lane 5 for the final. Morgan also competed in the 100m Br/S claiming lane 3 and 3rd place into the final with a solid heat swim of 1.25 and a 1 second PB. Next on the program was the 200m F/S. Hannah and Chrissie competed in the final heat against the rest of the top 10 year-old girls. Chrissie swam a very credible time of 3.02 to leave her in 7th place. Hannah’s swim was one of the closest of the day where on the final 25m she overhauled a rival in lane 3 and claimed Bronze medal by half a second and a huge 6 second PB. Great swimming and racing. Morgan paced an unbelievable 200m F/S again following the theme and winning his age group in the final 25m touching out his top rival by 0.4 and achieving a colossal 13 second PB and claiming his first gold of the meet. The final session began with three COB swimmers representing the club in the 100m Br/S final. This was a race to savour. Hannah came in in 6th place and after her exploits in the 200m F/S this was a real gutsy performance. Sophie after some disappointment with her heat swim stepped up and produced the goods with a fine swim in her first Ulster Age Groups coming home in 5th place. Again Sophie’s progress this season has been incredible. However in this final one COB swimmer claimed the spot light for herself. Christina McDowell produced the swim of the day having qualified for the final in 3rd place with a time 2 second slower than her PB. Chrissie decided to show us what she is made of and produced a final swim some 6 seconds faster than her heat some 4 seconds faster than her previous PB and was over 3 seconds ahead of her nearest challenger with a time of 1.36 a top class gold medal. This time would have qualified Chrissie for Irish age Groups (Div 2) but like Hannah she is still too young to take part. Ellen rose to the occasion in her 100m Br/S final and produced a silver medal winning swim. This was Ellen’s first medal at this level of competition and I’m confident many more will follow. Morgan finished the session off in his 100m Br/s final and decided to leave it all in pool and claimed a bronze medal with a real sprinters performance and a 2 second PB. After this session which was outstanding, COB have 3 gold’s, 6 silver and 2 bronze medals well done to all. SESSION FOUR, SUNDAY MORNING 10TH MAY. The morning session began with the heats of the 100m B/F Chrissie and Hannah made the final in two fine PB’s of 3 seconds and 8 seconds respectively. Morgan also took part in the heats and made the finals with a fast time and PB of 1.14. Following the B/F was the 200m B/C. All the 200m events are heat declared winners (HDW) with no finals. Swimmers have one swim to post their best time and performance. Hannah Beattie paced an outstanding race swimming her second half faster than her first half coming home in second place with a fine swim of 3.04, a 4 second PB and silver medal. The negative split technique was infectious when Morgan swam his 200m B/C in the same way and took a massive 10 seconds off his previous best time. Hannah and Chrissie were back in the water for the final of the 10 year-old girls 100m B/F. This was a fantastic race with a blanket covering the first five swimmers at the half way point, Chrissie came home in 5th place taking a further 2 seconds off her heat swim with a time of 1.34, and a total of 5 seconds off her best time for the day. Hannah produced a great second half to her 100m B/F and brought herself up from 5th to third at the 75m mark and then swam her last 7m with the after burners on and took silver medal in 1.29 a total of 10 seconds off her previous mark great results and performances. The final swims of the morning session came from our 10 and under 4 x 50m F/S relay teams. Our ‘B’ team members were Sarah McCracken, Georgia Ross, Ara McCarten and Caitriona O’Loan who all swam PB’s in the relay. This provided valuable experience for these swimmers who will hopefully be swimming in individual events in seasons in the future. Our ‘A’ team was Hannah, Sofie Hunter, Erin Blundell and Chrissie McDowell who swam amazing splits and came home in 4th place not far off bronze medal. This session put our total medals for the weekend at 3 gold, 8 silver and 2 bronze. SESSION FIVE, SUNDAY AFTERNOON 10TH MAY. The final events of these championships where the 100m F/S and 200m Br/S. Chrissie and Hannah competed in the heat's of the 10 year-old 100m F/S with Hannah qualifying for the final with a 3 second PB. Ellen O’Neill was back in action in the Sunday Afternoon session competing first in the 11 year-old 100m F/S coming away in a time of 1.17 and a 3 second PB. Morgan’s heat was up next and he stormed to a of time of 1.03.75 taking a huge total of 6 seconds off his previous best and qualifying for the final in 3rd place. The 200m Breaststroke was the last event. Sofie Hunter produced an outstanding performance in her event and took 2 seconds off her PB with a 3.43. This was Sofie’s first time competing at the Ulster Age Groups and has made considerable progress this season to qualify and come home in two top eight finishes in her events; top swimming. Chrissie McDowell was in top form in this event and took her opposition apart in the 10 year-old winning a gold medal in a time some 9 seconds better than her previous best swim. Ellen also competed in the 200m Br/S in the 11 year-old age group and again produced another medal winning performance. Ellen won another silver in this event and produced a massive PB with a time of 3.16, 8 seconds off her previous best swim. Last season Ellen qualified in both Br/S events and only came 7th in both and this season she won two silver’s in her event showing the progress she has made this season. Morgan competed in the boys 12 year-old 200m Br/S producing a super swim including a 16 second PB and a bronze medal. The final events for COB swimmers were the 100m F/S finals. Hannah was up first and with less than half a second covering the 2nd, 3rd and 4th place so this was always going to be a tight race and needed a super fast swim to get amongst the medals. Well Hannah produced a phenomenal swim taking a further 3 seconds off her heat swim with time of 1.14 and winning the bronze medal in a super tight finish giving Hannah a 5 second PB for her 100m F/S over the heat and final. Morgan finished off COB’s competition at the years Championships in the final of the 12 year-old boys 100m F/S. He again stepped up and produced a solid swim claiming the bronze medal and was up against some swimmers who are twice Morgan’s size putting his achievements in perspective. This weekend was an outstanding set of results for COB. These are the best results the club has achieved in the last 5 seasons. Considering last season and the number of qualifiers we had compared to the seven we had this season. The club recorded 4 gold, 9 silver and 4 bronze for this weekend of competition. If we add together our medals from the Age Group Distance Championships it brings COB’s total to 7 gold, 10 silver and 5 bronze, a total of 22 medals for the Age Groups Championships this season. This is a fantastic return and shows the quality of swimmers we have in our club and is a testament to work our swimmers put in and the commitment to the programme that their coaches have implemented this season and in previous seasons. Well done to all the swimmers from our relays swimmers right through to our qualifiers and medal winners. To even qualify for the Age Groups is a great achievement and COB managed a total of 34 PB’s for the meet from 44 individual swims plus numerous club records. Finally a thanks to all the parents who brought the swimmers down to compete at the Championships and to all the parents who helped out with time keeping duties, without your involvement and help none of this would be possible. Bring on the 2010/11 season. DS 11th May 2010