With swimmers starting the hunt for county, regional and national qualifying times ahead of these championships next year, clubs turned out in force at one east Suffolk side’s open meet last month.
Woodbridge-based Deben SC held the bulk of its annual multi-club competition on October 15 and 16, though the long distance 800metre and 1,500m events (for girls and boys respectively) were held in October 7.
The host club was obviously out in force for its own meet and entered 57 swimmers into a total of 337 individual races.
With an eye on next year’s events the coaching team was delighted to see a personal best (PB) success rate of around 72%.
On top of that 36 swimmers achieved 134 County Championship qualifying times between them.
There were also 12 East Region Championship qualifying times swum by the club’s members.
In his report on the meet head coach Stephen Moore praised the new club captains, Matthew Anderson, Archie Brigginshaw, Meg Claydon and Lewis Moore, for their help at the event.
Praising the efforts of his squad Moore said: “This has been a really great start to the season where we already exceed the number of county qualifiers we had last year.
“With the Deben Open being pulled forward by one month I wasn’t sure how well an early season meet would go.
“I need not have worried since the standard of swimming was outstanding and exceeded expectations.”
Moore also congratulated Ella Houston who picked up the President’s Award at the meet after achieving her first ever regional qualifying time (in the 400metre individual medley) and 12 county times.
One of the visiting teams at the meet was Newmarket and District SC, whose head coach Annette Skeet said she was very impressed by her swimmers.
Overall NDSC members achieved 59 PBs which included at least eight qualifying times for the next County Championships to be held across four weekends in January and February next year.
There were also 54 medals awarded to Newmarket swimmers during the event.
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