Winsford Swimming Club

Congratulations to Amy, Lois, Emily, Kate, and Annabelle for an incredible Winter Regionals! This year the times were harder than ever, it was an achievement just to get there! A nice long report from us both to sum up what an incredible weekend we have had as a club!

Saturday 

We started the weekend off with Amy on her 400 IM who did an amazing 4.59 to come 3rd overall and the first time she’s been below the 5 minute barrier in a while so this was a fantastic result! Next in was Kate as she did her 200 Backstroke heat taking 2.5 seconds off her lifetime PB going a 2.20 to make the Junior final! She repeated this time in the final finishing an amazing 4th against girls all older than her. We then started the afternoon session of with the 50m Backstroke where Kate did a lifetime PB in 29.29 and was ranked 2nd going into the final. We had an aim… we wanted to win it and break the 29 barrier, we had a race plan with Andy as well by executing more fly kicks off the turn and it worked… result paid off with a regional gold and the fastest across every single age group at age 14… WOW!!! Kate Schillinger take a bow…. Lois and Emily then took to the 100 Brst both finishing in new lifetime PBs and both did a lifetime PB on the 50 split!! Wow! Just incredible, straight into the finals. Lois finished 4th in the seniors and Emily finished 7th in the juniors! 

Sunday

Today, Emily and Lois kicked the racing off with a powerful 200 breast heat, Emily paced her race beautifully and smashed her PB with a new lifetime best of 2.42.14!! earning her final place where she took 7th – brilliant results especially with such a quick turnaround. Lois led the heat touching first on 2.37.55 – a fantastically paced race again and a season's best! Only to smash this in the final with a 2.36.87, 0.8 off her lifetime PB and taking 2nd place – almost 1st…. if only we had another 5m of pool! Kate had a fantastic 100 free first, casually dropping a 58.91 – another lifetime PB and a new Winter NQT! Next up for Kate, the 100 IM a superb effort touching in on another lifetime PB of 1.07.54 - just .04 off a winter NQT. Kate made the finals for both races, achieving 6th and 5th respectively – a fantastic result. Next up was Amy with her 1500 free, off her lifetime PB but placing 2nd in the region - a great start to her season showing great energy and pacing ability. In the afternoon Annabelle put on a fantastic 200 fly, holding the best turns and underwater skills of the day, just coming in 2 seconds off her lifetime PB. Kate smashed out another PB in 50 free touching in on 26.61, only to repeat this in the final but narrowly missed 3rd by .01! Finally was 100 back, little slip on the heats but another chance in the final touching in on 1.04.99, narrowly missing 3rd AGAIN by 0.6 – again fantastic results with another 2 years in this age group. 

Further congratulations, well done to Carys Roberts who was competing in the West Midlands Winter Champs under Uni of Birmingham who also achieved her winter nationals time on the 50m Freestyle and took gold!! Carys's time would have also placed her 2nd within our Region too! Carys also got silver in the 100m Freestyle. Super proud that you are excelling at University and we can’t wait to have you back with us next weekend!!

Congratulations to Lewis Turner who swum in the North East Winter Champs at Ponds Forge, looking at the results my first reaction was wooh at the volume of entries compared to our region, they are clearly super fast in Yorkshire!! Lewis swum in the 400 Free at a new seasons best time, 50 Fly in a new 1.4 second lifetime PB, and a new lifetime PB by 1.2 seconds on the 100 IM! Absolutely huge drop in time, we also can’t wait to see you shine next weekend!!

Thank you Jackie Schillinger, Andy Jones, Harry Jones and Charlotte Peel for Volunteering at the end. We are so grateful to have you representing our club, it was lovely to see our familiar faces!!

We now move onto Arena League… with final preparations about to get underway we need attendance to be vital this week if you are in the teams, especially Wednesday evening. 

Thank you

Molly and Izzy