Swimming squad shines at Watford Regional qualifiers

A squad of swimmers from Thame Swimming Club ventured to Watford for the annual Regional Qualifier meet over the weekend of March 18-19, and came home with delighted with a string of Personal Bests and wins.

“Those swimming on the Saturday were lucky enough to enjoy a lie-in as the meet didn’t start until 1pm so the swimmers were lively and raring to go once the event got underway,” said club spokesperson Michele Block. “Sadly this wasn’t the case for those swimming on Sunday with another more usual early start!” Here’s Michele’s full report:

Team Thame enjoyed a great weekend of racing against a very competitive field from much larger clubs, with all the team’s swimmers coming home with at least one PB and most with multiple PBs, which was a fantastic result!

Outstanding moments from the weekend are highlighted below:

* An awesome opening swim for Murray Wakefield, knocking 14 secs of his 400 Free, having only just set his ‘old’ PB at Counties in February!
* In the 200 IM, the Group 3 girls – Tabitha, Maya and Flora all got impressive PBs with an eye on trying to move up a lane in training (a very canny
lane ordering system introduced by Simon Haarburger!)
* Josh Williams went a fantastic sub 2 minutes for the first time in his 200 Free, which ranks him top of the South East Region and 13th in the whole
of Great Britain in this distance for his age group. Wow – what a phenomenal achievement; well done Josh! Josh also takes the top place in the SE
Region for his 400m Free PB of 4.15.74.
* George Pearson, our sole Group 1 swimmer on Saturday, knocked an amazing 5 seconds off his 50 Fly (also getting PBS in 100 Fly and 200 Fly – no
guessing his favourite stroke!)
* Joshua Greig powered to a PB of 29.56 in his 50 Free, his first sub-30 second time at this event – fabulous!
* Oscar North picked up four Regional Consideration Times for 400 Free, 50 Fly and 200 Free and 100 Free – great work Oscar.
* Katelin Phillips for an outstanding 400 Free swim, knocking a whopping 25 seconds off her previous PB, way to go! Katelin also went sub 40 for the
first time on her 50 Fly with a time of 38.81.
* Maya Camp for fabulously swimming sub 3 minutes for the first time in her 200 Backstroke (2.54.21) – awesome swimming Maya.

Our Club was congratulated by some of the Watford Marshals for having such a lovely, polite and punctual squad of swimmers – so thank you to you all for being so fabulous!

Thanks to Paul Williams, Emma Camp, Rachel Humphreys and Emma Day for officiating and to our ever supportive coaches Ian Blyth and Iain Phillips for all their encouragement. It was a rare outing for Michele Block as Team Manager (usually officiating!), helped by our new recruit, Damian Wakefield – we had a great time – thanks to all the swimmers there who threw themselves into cheering and supporting each other – what a Team!