GALA REPORT
gala: Bournemouth Dolphins SC 15th Annual Open Meet
Venue: Littledown Centre, Bournemouth
date
: 9th April 2005
report by: Nick Beadel

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A WHALE OF A TIME AT BOURNEMOUTH
Jodie’s National Joy at Bournemouth Dolphins SC 15th Annual Open Meet
Killerwhales Swimming Club competed against some very talented southern clubs in the 8 lane 25m pool of the hugely impressive Littledown Centre, the home of Bournemouth Dolphins. Such quality facilities deserve to host quality competitions and the Killerwhale swimmers did not disappoint and helped raise the standards for the weekends demanding schedule.

Undoubtedly the most noteworthy performance was that of 10 year old Jodie Momodu who needed to improve her personal best by 1.5 secs in the 200m Breaststroke to gain the National Entry time for 11 year olds. With older team-mate Robyn Beadel alongside Jodie in her heat she had a marker to try to stay with if she was to be drawn through to get that elusive time. A well paced first 100m saw Jodie turn still on course, as the competition warmed up Jodie stayed hard on the heels of Robyn who was trying to improve her own best time, the last 50m would be crucial for Jodie to get inside 2.36.38. With two turns from home Jodie pulled up alongside Robyn and dug deeper to pull away showing what great determination she has, over the final few metres the encouragement coming from the section of Whales supporters was deafening, as she touched the wall she immediately looked up to see the timing board showing a time of 3.03.20 on realisation of her achievement she collapsed over the lane rope in exhaustion her mother was equally exhausted but welled up with joy and was strangely quite for a while. Alongside this gold medal performance Jodie still had enough energy to manage a fine bronze in the 50m breast, 5th in the 100m breast and 6th in the 50m butterfly additionally she took 3+secs off her 200m IM time when finishing 11th.

15 year old Kirsty Forbes won her 400m Individual Medley much to the bewilderment of Bournemouth Dolphins announcer who, after being in awe of her 100m butterfly commented that “. . . she is probably not a back-stroker”. After Kirsty increased her lead during the 100 metres of backstroke the announcer told everyone that “. . .she must be a weak breaststroker”, he was somewhat surprised to see her go further away and decided not to pose the final question but Kirsty gave the answer anyway, an equally impressive front-crawl saw her emphatically win the event by over 20m, to which the announcer commented her performance as being “immensely impressive”. Kirsty added to her medley dominance by winning the 100m event earlier in the day. Overall she had a very good weekends swimming and whilst not lowering her previous best times was consistently on time and managed a further three silver medals, 400m freestyle, 200m breaststroke, 100m backstroke, a bronze in the 100m freestyle, two fourth places in the 100m breaststroke and 100m butterfly were followed with a 5th in the 50 free.

Boys Captain, Daniel Hime, (16 years) had a very busy weekend and like Kirsty was not quite able to better his personal best times but still managed to grab a number of medals. His finest display saw him take gold medal in the 200m breaststroke where he dominated his age group. He also took two silver medals in the same stroke but the shorter distances of 50m and 100m. Over the same distances but in the butterfly events he managed another two silvers and whilst taking a bronze in the 200m. Dan managed two other bronze medals in the 400m medley and 400m freestyle and 8th in the 50m freestyle.

Another 16 year old and, Laura Andrews the girls Vice-Captain gave the spectators a demonstration of her all-round stylish stroke work when taking gold in the 100m individual medley. Laura managed a bronze in the 100m butterfly, 4th place in the 400m medley, the 400m freestyle (in a new best time) and the 200m fly plus she finished 9th in the 100m freestyle.

16 year old Alice Scott was also gold medal performer taking top honours in the 200m breaststroke event. Alice also took two bronze medals in the other breaststroke events raced over 50m and 100m, a sixth place in the 200m freestyle was followed by an 8th place in the 100m freestyle.

Henny Andrews (14) took medals in each of the breaststroke events, her best finish taking a silver medal was in the 100m, she then took two bronze medals in the 50m and 200m races, the later in a new personal best time.

Ellen Scott (13) had a good weekends swimming with 9 races in total she took a bronze medal in the 200m breaststroke and two 6th places in the 200m and 400m medley events all of these were in new best times. She managed 4 other pb’s in the 50m freestyle (21st), 200m freestyle (22nd) and 400m freestyle (11th) and 200m butterfly. The other two races saw her finish 7th in 100m breaststroke and 10th 100m butterfly.

Janine Rayner (15) had eight swims with her best performances coming in her favoured breaststroke where she took 5th place in the 50m breaststroke and then went one place better to finish 4th over 200m, she finished well placed in 7th over 100m. Janine also managed an 8th place and 16th place in the 200m and 100m medley events.

Lauren Andrews look very strong in finishing 6th place in the 100m butterfly event, she like many of her team-mates had a hectic schedule but proved her stamina is returning with some very creditable performances. Lauren managed a 7th place in the 50m fly, took 9th and 12th in the 200m and 100m medleys, 11th and 16th in the 50m and 100m breaststrokes, and set a new personal best in the 50m freestyle.

Molly Scott (10) best finish was 6th in the 50m breaststroke, in her only other races, 200m breaststroke she finished 17th.

With ten races Daniel Bleach (14 years) hardly had time to sit down and relax but managed to raise the bar with many very good performances, setting 6 new best times in the process. These came in the 100m (15th) and 200m (9th) butterfly, 50m (12th) and 100m (19th) backstroke, 100m (16th) and 200m (20th) medley events.

The other young man competing was James Shelley (14 years old) who dearly wanted to record his first licensed meet sub 60 second freestyle. Willed on every inch of the way he just fell short by 0.29 seconds. He did set some new best times in his 50m free, 200m medley and 200m breaststroke, the latter being some 8 seconds quicker.

13 year old Robyn Beadel was not put off having to swim the Open 400m medley in the same final heat as team-mate Kirsty Forbes; in fact she revelled in the challenge finishing in 8th place overall and some 17 seconds faster than her previous best time. She also finished 12th in the 200m in a personal best. Her 7th in the 100m backstroke, 8th in the 200m backstroke and 9th in the 200m butterfly were all in new best times.

Katinka Merchan (12) managed to better her 200m butterfly time by over 6 seconds and then went on to better her 200m medley time by over 8 seconds. Katie Miles (13) worked extremely hard over 8 lengths of breaststroke to beat her recently set 200m breaststroke time. Georgia Shaw can take some cheer from the weekend when she set a new best time by knocking nearly five seconds off her 200m medley time.
 



 

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