Three swimmers from Junior Development (Ella Blyth, Ruby Couzens and Imogen Viney) along with three from Aquarius Performance (Alex Hindle, Grace Rees and Ellie Sibbald-Perkins) all travelled to Matlock at the weekend for the Derventio Excel Short Course Open Meet in Matlock. They were representing the City of Birmingham Swimming Club, which took swimmers from its Development, Junior and Senior Squads, meaning that all but its very youngest swimmers were present. The girls were all representing the Development Squad and Alex Hindle the Junior Squad. It was Ella's very first Open Meet and Grace's last with the Development Squad as she has now turned 13. The Meet was a Level 2 Meet, which meant that the qualifying times are much faster to attract the fastest swimmers in the region.
Life at City of Birmingham can be tough and Development Squad swimmers had to attend a full training session on the Friday night, from 5.30 to 8.30pm, before travelling up to Matlock, arriving about 10pm. "Make sure you have an early night," Coach Chris said, as they were leaving!!!!! Swimmers then had to be up very early the next day to be pool-side at 7:30am, ready for the warm-up at 8.00am.
Each swimmer took part in 5 events on each of the 2 days, making a total of 10 events each. In the Development Squad, all swimmers had to swim the same 8 events (50 Free, Back, Breast and Fly; 100 Free, 200 Free, 100 IM and 200 IM). The coach then picked an additional 2 events tailored to each swimmer. These might be events he wanted like to see them swim in for the first time or events in which he wanted to track performance. Each swimmer then had to choose a goal for all 10 events. For example, completing a 2 second drive off the wall at each turn, doing four fly kicks after each drive, maintaining a set breathing pattern, keeping their head in a certain position etc. At the end of each race, swimmers are given feedback on their swim technically and whether or not they have achieved their goal. Times are NEVER discussed and swimmers can be told off if they post a fast time but don't pay attention to their goals. However, swimmers can't help looking at their times and it was great to see all our swimmers achieving PBs in most if not all of their races. Well done girls!!!
In the Junior Squad, swimmers are judged on both speed and technique and are asked to swim a variety of races. Alex Hindle didn't disappoint, posting some super-fast times with strong technical performances. Results for all the Orion swimmers can be seen in the link below:
http://www.derventioexcel.org.uk/results/dx15sc/
Special mentions go to Ruby Couzens for winning Top Girl in the 10 year old age group, whilst breaking the Orion 50m Butterfly and 100IM club record. Imogen Viney and Ellie Sibbald-Perkins for holding even splits on the 200m breastroke (not slowing down!) and to Ella Blyth who swam her second 400m freestyle race in a week, showing her confident racing attitude by producing a 20 second personal best!
Unlike most Open Meets, where swimmers have to sit poolside between events, swimmers were housed in the Leisure Centre Sports Hall next to the pool, where they could chill out, warm up on the spinning bikes, eat (lots of) snacks and play games. Another highlight of the weekend was having the Senior Squad present, which really inspired our swimmers, especially seeing the international swimmers such as Luke Davies, Chloe Finch and Brittany Horton race. They also had the opportunity to receive feedback from both Junior and Senior coaches.
The last event on Sunday saw our swimmers cheering Grace on in the 100 IM - her last race representing the Development Squad. The day finished at about 5:30pm with City of Birmingham being announced as the top club in the competition. Our very tired swimmers (and parents!) then made the long journey back to Birmingham.'
No comments:
Post a Comment