National Short Course Championships 07

by Joy Stevenson

Nationals 2007
Ponds Forge, Sheffield

After the usual fight with the Friday evening M1 traffic, the 2007 Nationals got off to a flying start for Kenilworth Masters with Trevor Clark storming to gold in the 50m Butterfly in an impressive time of 28.69. The standard had been set for the weekend.

Saturday got underway with one of the longer distance events with John Smith and Michelle Dige competing in the 400m Freestyle. After enduring the 16 lengths Michelle came away with a silver medal and John finished 7th in a competitive field. Next up was Trevor, taking another gold medal in his second butterfly event of the weekend, this time taking the honours over 100m.

With barely enough time to catch his breath, Trevor was back in the pool for the next event in the session, the 100 IM and added a silver to his growing medal haul. Competing in the ladies equivalent event, Michelle was joined by Suzanne Linton (under the disguise of Camphill) in the 45 to 49 age group. The Kenilworth ladies dominated the medals collecting a bronze and a gold respectively.

The morning session was rounded off with the Mixed Freestyle relays. First up was the 200 + team, comprising Jackie Grace, Michelle Dige, Anthony O’Driscoll and Bob Lord who took the bronze medal in a time of 1.56.57. Bob put in an impressive fourth leg that could have rivalled Mark Foster! The 120+ team of Jill Groves, Mel McWhirter, Steve Goult and Jon Leybourne put in an equally strong performance of 1.52.00 to finish eighth in a field of 15 teams.

After barely enough time for lunch, the afternoon session saw Kenilworth’s fastest Freestyle swimmers in action. Mel built on her previous week’s PB with an even faster time of 1.02.43, finishing just outside of the medals by two tenths of a second. In the 45 to 49 age group, Suzanne sprinted to gold, five seconds ahead of her nearest rival in a time of 1.03.02.

In the Men’s 100m free, Trevor took the pool for his fourth event of the competition and his fourth medal, a silver in a super quick time of 59.02. The sprinting was rounded off by Matt Thomas with a life time best of 52.64 to finish 7th in a phenomenal field of over 50 swimmers.

The great results in the Freestyle were capitalised on by Steve Goult and Jill Groves. Steve taking the bronze in his favoured 200m Breaststroke event in a time of 2.34.86 and Jill achieving gold in the 50m Backstroke, breaking the 33 second mark with 32.57. Suzanne and Jackie brought a further two medals home in the same event taking silver and bronze respectively.

The final events on Day 1 were the Mixed Medley relays with both the 120+ team and 200+ team going one place better than their results in the morning’s Freestyle relays to finish off a very successful day for Kenilworth.

It was a reserved evening of partying from the overnight contingent, with all heading for an early night – including Matt who turned down the company of a couple of ladies to prepare himself for the 50m Free!

Sunday started as a sleepy affair with very few out of bed for the warm up, except John Smith who was doubling his distance from the previous day to compete in the 800m. He put in a strong and consistent performance to take bronze in his first ever attempt at the event.

Moving on to the 100m backstroke and the Kenilworth crowd were back in force. Both Jill and Suzanne were competing in the event with Jill putting in a strong time to go fourth and Suzanne adding to her medal haul with a further silver. Kenilworth had 3 competitors in the men’s event. Mike Ireland was competing in his first competition for over 5 years and was pleased with his 5th place in a time of 1.09.07 and Trevor narrowly missed out on gold to take a further silver medal in a time of 1.08.54. Andrew Seggie had an unfortunate incident in his event when he clattered his heal on the boom on the first turn to limit what otherwise would have been a quick time.

Funnily enough there didn’t seem to be any takers for the 200m Butterfly so there was short breather from the cheering before Karen Stacey lined up for her first event of the Nationals. Competing in the 50m Breaststroke, Karen narrowly missed out on the medals in a time of 39.79.

To round off the morning it was the Male and Female Freestyle relays. In the men’s event Kenilworth had two teams, the quartet of John Hamilton, Trevor Clark, Mike Ireland and Steve Goult who took bronze in the 160+ age group with the younger team of Matt Thomas, John Smith, Jon Leybourne and Andrew Seggie finishing 7th in the very competitive 72+ category.

Next up was the turn of the ladies, with the team of Jill Groves, Mel McWhirter, Claire O’Reilly and Karen Stacey in the 120+ age group. Claire swam out of her skin to smash her previous PB to keep the team in contention and help them to an impressive 5th.

The final session of the Nationals kicked off for Kenilworth with the blue ribbon event, the 50m Freestyle. In the ladies event, Kenilworth had four swimmers taking part. Buoyed by her excellent split in the freestyle relay, Claire broke her previous PB again in a time of 33.15. In the same age group, Mel went two places better than her 100m result to take the silver, just missing gold by less than a 10th of a second. In the 45 to 49 category Kenilworth sprinted home to take the top two places through Suzanne and Karen respectively.

In the men’s event, the Kenilworth contingent came up against some serious competition, Jon Leybourne finished middle of the field in the 25 to 29 age group in a time of 26.55. In the 40 / 44 age group John Hamilton put in a pleasing time of 27.78 and Mike Ireland put in a strong performance to take 5th place in 26.68. The quickest time of the day and his second life time PB came from Matt, coming home in 24.33.

The last individual event of the competition was the 200IM with Mike competing in his third event of the day. He finished his run of great results with another 5th place in a time of 2.35.98.

That just left the Medley relays. The 72+ team went one place better than their Freestyle relay result with the 160+ unfortunately going the other way to slip into fourth and just miss the medals. In the ladies Medley relay, the girls tried a slightly different line up on the order and again took an impressive 5th place.

The 2007 Nationals saw Kenilworth amass altogether 6 Gold, 9 Silver and 7 Bronze medals. This also resulted in several British and West Midlands records for the team of swimmers as follows:

British Records
Suzanne Linton – 50m and 100m Freestyle (45 to 49 years)

West Midlands Records
Suzanne Linton – 50m and 100m Backstroke (45 to 49 years)
Matt Thomas – 100m Freestyle (19 to 24 years)
Mel McWhirter – 50m Freestyle (30 to 34years)
Jill Groves – 50m Backstroke (30 to 34years)
Trevor Clark - 50m Butterfly, 100m Freestyle and 100m Ind Medley (50 to 54years)

Well done to all who competed over the weekend, including those who train with Kenilworth but swam under a different club – Arthur Lowe who won 2 golds and a silver in his 3 events and also Dave Roberts who is due to join Kenilworth who won a gold and two silvers.

Full list of results click

30/10/07