Solihull Friendly Gala Report

A big thanks to Ian for leading the team to a solid 2nd place, just a few points off first! Take a few minutes to read through his report below.

Orion finished a solid 2^nd place at Saturday’s friendly gala hosted at Solihull and only 5 points off first.

In total we had 19 1^st places, 14 2^nd places, 10 3^rd places, 8 4^th places and 1 5^th place. We also had no DQ’s in this gala, however there was some leniency.

We were a bit short on 11 boys and girls and 12 year old girls for this gala so thank you to all those swimmers who filled in by swimming up, in particular Niamh, Maya, Daniel, Stefan and JoeD.

The 9 year old girls showed their strength by winning both of their relays as did the 10 year old girls.

The most outstanding swim of the night must go to Althaf Bukhari swimming a 35.50 for 50m Fly and receiving a round of applause from the audience. Althaf also claims the club record for this event which has stood since 2002.

The top boy of the night must go to Althaf Bukhari for his 50m Fly and the top girl to Niamh Bevan for outstanding swims throughout, in particular in Event 1 where Niamh showed her streamlined fly kick speed coming up at half way a few meters ahead of the opposition.

Throughout the gala it was clear that shallow end relay takeover practice is needed, whilst we will continue to work on this in training it is critical swimmers understand the following:

·         When you are the swimmer performing the shallow end finish keep low and don’t jump up otherwise you will block the diving swimmer.

·         When you are the swimmer performing the shallow end dive position yourself in the center of the lane. You will be diving over the swimmer and not round them. Finally ensure you dive in and not fall in!

This gala has set the expectations to perform well for this year’s Junior League. It is however critical that we have the strongest team possible in order to fully compete against the other clubs. Another reminder of these crucial dates: 5^th April, 10^th May, 28^th June, 13^th September.

I must also apologize to Zakariya Ahmad for missing him off the Teamer invites and hence the gala.

Thanks to all the Orion officials which were Pippa Sibbald-Perkins, Ganga Gurung, Aaarti Jain and David Smith.

Special thanks to Clara Day for her invaluable poolside help.

Ian

News

Just one more week of training until Counties!!! We start the competition off with the girls freestyle relay and the boys medley relay which will hopefully the first of many great swims!

A couple of pointers from me for the duration of the competition:

• Be early! This applies to everything - there's nothing worse than being late and stressed at a competition and has a huge effect on performance. 
• Eat well and stay hydrated. Come prepared with meals and snacks as well as plenty of fluids. 
• Bring a chair. Camping chairs are perfect for meets at Coventry with little seating on poolside.
• Bring clothes to wear on poolside that you don't mind getting wet, and flip flops. 
• Try and bring spares of everything just in case! 
• Know what you're swimming! I do not expect people turning up not even knowing what races they are in. It shows a lack of interest and preparation. We'll let you know what heat and lane you're in though once we know on the day. 
• Find the team and stay with them for the day. I talk about being a team a hell of a lot, and a good team atmosphere on poolside makes things much more enjoyable. Go and speak to parents after races etc but I expect everyone on poolside for the majority of the day. 
• Make sure you speak to me BEFORE AND AFTER every race. 
• Make sure you swim the full race warm up and swim down which we'll practice a few times this week. 
• Try and make an extra session or two this week! Remember there's no training on Tuesday night.
• Team kit please wherever possible! 

If I think of anything else I'll make another post, and if any one has questions please ask!

On another note, records are starting to fall! Stefan and Niamh both writing their names in the history books at the WWL last weekend. Rumour has it more were broken last night?!

Finally, the first morning session starts on Thursday! I'm hoping for a good turn out, otherwise the opportunity will be taken away from us. This is the next step on that long journey to success...

See you all tomorrow! 

Coach Rob

Solihull Junior Friendly

Good Luck to all the Juniors racing on Saturday night!

Loughborough Session Success

Thank you to all who came to the session tonight! There was a good turn out and everyone seemed to get the hang of swimming in the longer pool!

See as many of you as possible tomorrow please! Only 12 days to go to the Counties!

Coach Rob

Loughborough Session on Sunday

Just a quick reminder about the long course (50m) session this Sunday. It will be from 1700 - 1900 at the University pool. The plan is for Juniors and Aquarius to share the two lanes for the first hour, and then the Juniors will get out leaving Aquarius a little more room to train for the second hour. This may change slightly on the day depending on numbers etc. We may also do a slightly extended stretching session, but whatever the case we will finish at 1900.

This will be invaluable experience for everyone swimming at the Counties in a few weeks, especially those who have never swam long course before. Please take this opportunity and save yourself disappointment at the counties from the unusual experience! 

Coach Rob 

More Good News!

As of tomorrow, Swimmers in Lanes 5 and 6 will swim for an extra half an hour until half 7. Carl has been kind enough to allow us to carry on into his session to give the older swimmers some extra time and attention. 

This extra training is expected of these swimmers - it is not an option like stretching - and swimmers will only be allowed out at the normal time of 7 if their parent or carer comes and speaks to me to explain the reasons why. 

Swimmers in lanes 3 and 4 will get out at the normal time of 7 and stretch. 

See you tonight, 

coach Rob

Good News!

As of the 27th of February we will be starting a morning training session from 0600 - 0700 at the girl's pool.

This session is open to ALL Performance and Club swimmers, and Junior swimmers who usually train in Lanes 3-6. If you have any queries or are unsure if you or your child can come, then please ask! 

There will also be a lane for any parents who wish to have a swim. This lane will not be coached and will be charged at £3 per parent per session. 

I've seen a lot of goal sheets, and a lot of motivated little swimmers who tell me all about what they want to achieve in the sport. This success will not come without  hard work and sacrifice, so lets see who really wants it the most! The first few weeks may make you a little tired during the day, but keep at it as your body will adapt as you get into a routine. By the time I was 11 I was training at least 3 mornings a week, for 2 hours each! You have got to want this - set your own alarms and don't wait for your Mum or Dad to wake you up - they are doing you a huge favor! 

Also make sure you have had something to eat before you train. Any 'I cant eat food this early in the morning' excuses will not be accepted and I will not let you train. Parents please keep an eye on this. Porridge, a banana, scrambled eggs on toast, good cereal (not Coco pops or Sugar puffs!) are all great ways of getting in the energy you'll need. 

Please do not attend (Performance and Juniors) unless you are ready to work hard. Club swimmers, please let me know what sort of things you'd be interested in doing so I can design some sets. 

See you soon!

Coach Rob

County Relays

I will be putting a team sheet on the notice board for the county relays by Monday. Please take a look and sign off your swimmer if they have been selected and they can compete.

Please cross reference with the day the relay is on and the days you are competing to avoid any last minute confusion. 

Coach Rob  

Coach Rob

25 Days...

After today only 25 days will remain until the first Saturday of the County Championships! 

These last 4 weeks of training will make a huge difference on performance, so lets really work hard to focus and remember why we are doing all this training! 

At the start of tonight, I will be teaching everyone some basic land warm up exercises that are crucial to racing fast. So often swimmers will do the warm up, and then hardly move for, sometimes hours, and then stand behind the blocks expecting to swim fast! Understanding little things like this could make all the difference. Please do your best to be on time!   

Coach Rob

Redditch Gala Success!

Well done to everyone to swam tonight! I'm hugely impressed with our first Junior gala of the season!

1st: Kingsbury 216
2nd: Redditch 185
3rd: ORION 169
4th: Pershore 156
5th: Bromsgrove 119
6th: Blythe 115

From our 3rd place, we had:

13 speeding tickets. 
17 1sts
5 2nds
9 3rds 
2 4ths 
And 5 DQs. 

...making up the total 51 events.

To briefly explain, this was a B grade gala. To encourage big teams to enter their slower swimmers, they employ a speeding ticket system where any swimmer who goes faster than the set times for each event win 0 points. 

As Orion is a small club, we can only just about put together a full team using all our swimmers. We won the vast majority of races including the ones where we were penalised for being too quick. 

The atmosphere was excellent, with a great team spirit. All Junior galas will be run similar in the future, so please get there early, and stay until the very end. There's nothing more disheartening than standing on the blocks for the last relay and seeing all of your team go home. 

DQs were mainly for relay takeovers. I mention this all the time, and so am a little dissapointed. As we won most of the relays, if we'd had clean takeovers throughout we could have easily come second...

All in all very impressed and happy with all the Junior Swimmers. A special well done to...

Male Swimmer of the Night: Daniel Hindle
Female Swimmer if the Night: Imogen Viney

And last but not least, a big thank you to all the helpers, especially Loz and Angie who came and Judged/team managed without even having any of their own swimmers competing. Truly inspirational role models. 

See you Monday!

Coach Rob