Winsford Swimming Club

After last weekend's very exciting racing, Winsford Swim Team again were looking to race hard, practice tactics, pacing and swim very fast, and that is what we certainly did. This weekend was the reverse of last weekend's action, so what the girls raced last week, the lads raced this week, and vice versa. So the programme was familiar, the operations of shipping in and shipping out the swimmers was familiar, it was all familiar except for of course the weather which was changeable, with thunderstorms, torrential rain, of which at times it was literally raining cats, dogs and even hamsters, there was also a small smattering and I mean small window of sunshine to enjoy. So umbrellas were in order for our hardy outside Covid Liaison Officers.

Each of the days begun with either the 400 IM or the 200 Free and progressing through the events with the finally of day 4 being the girls 200 Butterfly, of which we had 11 tough girls taking part. Each and every swimmer who raced this weekend did a superb job, last weekend was fantastic and the second weekend followed suit, with some amazing stand out swims, which bodes very well going into the North West swimming festival in little under 3 weeks time in Manchester. 

Over the weekend we had all ages competing, from our very youngest Harriet Lawson who is just 8 years old, right up to our University swimmers who returned to get some racing under their belts, and update their ranking times. We had numerous swimmers who raced, and raced and raced, which was so pleasing to see. We also had lots of swimmers racing over all the distances, which was again pleasing to see. I have said it before but it is so important for our younger swimmers to prioritise the middle and longer distance events, with the first event ticked to enter being the 200 and 400 IM. At Winsford we try and produce all round skilled swimmers in all the strokes, so entering the IM events are very important. 

The results over the weekend outstanding, with so much achieved, whether that be a very fast time, or a tactical goal, or a pacing goal, or to practice a racing skill or technique, or to benchmark our swims so we can build on these swims into the future. I think what we can all take away from this weekend and last, is that racing is so much fun, yes everything was different but racing and challenging ourselves is the best of fun any of us could have. So thank you to all swimmers who raced, supported our club and gained so much from the four days of events.

A huge amount of time, effort and expertise were put into organising our level 4 summer meet. I will say this, the meet run like clockwork, a Swiss Patek Phillipe type master piece it was. As mentioned last week the club had to go through many hoops for us to run our very own licensed meet. We are one of the few clubs who went ahead with the mind set of, “we will put on a licensed meet for our swimmers no matter what”, our team all have a can do attitude, and any problems presented to us were followed up by an immediate solution. For Winsford Swim Team to put on such a successful meet is testament to all who were involved in organising, in the many months prior to the event, and to everyone who volunteered on the days of competition. It was a massive team effort from so many people, with a special mention for Michael Secker, Lucie George, and Sue Wright who went over and above, to help organise our superb level 4 summer meet.

Now that the racing is done, all our swimmers can look back and be very pleased with all the achievements we gained. This really does set us up nicely for the North West Festival of Swimming which takes place on the 24th, 25th and 31st July. Please can all swimmers who are aged 13 or over as of 31st December 2021, enter this meet in Manchester. All the details are on our website on the gala calendar page. Closing date is Wednesday 14th July, so please get your entries in soon. It would be great to see all our swimmers in Manchester racing over the Long Course format, in what will be a great way to end the season.

Thank you once again to TEAM WINSFORD, it was wonderful to see everyone in Winsford orange colours, and racing with superb attitude. The future is very exciting and I, along with all the coaching team are buzzing to get our swimmers back racing properly in the new season. There is so much more for us all to achieve.

“If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself” Henry Ford.

See you at the pool.

Dan.