Ever-impressive South Lincs Competitive Swimming Club returned home from the City of Leicester Open meet with a bag full of medals.
The level two event held from Friday to Sunday saw members of the Spalding-based club do a sterling job as they contested numerous heats and final.
Emma Croker collected silver in the girls’ 13/14 years age group 50m butterfly with a strong early season short course time of 29.10secs.
However, it was the 100m freestyle where she had the opportunity to top the podium. Posting the fastest heat time and winning the 13/14 years age group event, Croker qualified for the junior final.
In that race she led from the start, swimming further away from the field throughout the race to win by a huge margin, in new short course personal best (PB) time of 58.19 secs.
Mollie Briggs also had an outstanding weekend of competition. She started her campaign by taking silver in the girls’ 13/14 years age group 400m freestyle, setting a new PB of 4.31.54mins.
She went on to contest the 200m butterfly and once again set a new PB of 2.31.58mins to take a second silver medal in her age group and qualify through to the junior final.
In a tremendous race, Peel sat in second place for the majority of the race but found something extra in the final 50m to overhaul the leading swimmer at the very last stroke to touch home in 2.28.48mins and take the gold medal.
Meanwhile, Isobel Gosling swam a strong heat swim in the 200m butterfly to win the girls 11/12 years age group in this event.
In the heats, Gosling swam to a time of 2.44.49mins, just fractionally outside her PB.
She also qualified through as the youngest swimmer, to the junior final. In the race, Gosling couldn’t quite manage to match her heat time and finished in eighth place, but gained valuable experience of swimming heats and finals in this event.
Team-mate Dusty Saines had a successful weekend at the meet, too. She posted new PB times in the 200m Individual Medley (IM), the 100m freestyle and the 100m butterfly.
A strong swim in the heats of the 200m butterfly also saw her qualify through to the senior final in this event, where she went on to take a sixth place finish.
Ellisha Cookson was another to have a busy start to the weekend, posting a new PB time in the 200m IM and also qualifying through to the senior finals of both the 200m butterfly (where she took fifth place) and the senior final of the 10m breaststroke, where she took eighth place.
Briggs then continued her busy weekend schedule with the heats of both the 200m freestyle and the 100m butterfly. She once again posted new PB times in both events of 2.11.68mins and 1.10.27mins respectively.
Briggs was also able to claim the bronze medal in both of these events in the girls’ 13/14 years age group and qualify through to both junior finals.
In the 200m freestyle she started at the back of the field and gradually moved through the ranks to finish in a further PB time of 2.10.80mins and take fifth place.
Within minutes she was back in the pool for the 100m butterfly and another strong performance saw Mollie take another bronze medal in a fresh PB time of 1.08.68mins.
The brilliant Briggs finished the weekend with the biggest haul of medals, taking home one gold, two silver and three bronze.
Elsewhere, Alex Sadler had a strong weekend of performances.
He was just fractionally outside his PB in the 50m butterfly, stopping the clock in 33.47secs to take the silver medal in the boys’ 11/12 years age group.
There was a second silver medal for Sadler in the 11/12 years age group with an excellently structured race in the 200m freestyle which saw him finishing in a new PB of 2.18.80mins.
His final event was the 100m butterfly, where he was able to top the podium and claim the gold medal. A strong swim saw him finish in a new short course PB time of 1.13.24mins.
Cookson was also very busy on the final day of competition. She swam to a new season’s best time in the 200m freestyle and then went on to swim in the final of the Senior Mystery Medley event.
In this event, swimmers contest a 200m IM in a random order. Cookson managed to draw a central lane and swam the race as breaststroke, butterfly, freestyle and backstroke.
Despite the unusual order, she swam a great race and posted a time of 2.27.99mins to take a fifth place finish.
Cookson also swam the 400m IM and the 200m breaststroke. In the latter she qualified through to the senior final and lined up against Olympian Molly Renshaw, taking eighth place.
Luke Blanchard was also a finalist over the course of the weekend.
He contested the 200m breaststroke and in the heats lined up against World Championship silver medallist James Wilby.
A little over-excited by the experience, he took his race out a little too fast and posted a finish time just outside of his best, but it was enough to see him through to the senior final.
Blanchard managed a more controlled race in the final and improved his heat time to finish in 2.37.22mins for an eighth place finish.
Also in action was Nitesh Anbazhagan, who swam an excellent heat swim in the boys 100m butterfly and posted a new short course PB time of 1.10.90mins and qualified through to the junior final.
Anbazhagan couldn’t quite match his heat time in the final, but finished in a respectable seventh place and like his team mates gained valuable experience of having to negotiate both the heats and finals.
