Southampton lead the way at the QuaysSouthampton hosted its annual February Open Meet on Sunday 7th February attracting visiting teams from across the region. After a long days competition and over 80 medals David Terry looks back on a highly successful day.
Head Coach David Terry comments:
Firstly a Huge Vote of Thanks to our CSSC Helpers, without you guys this Meet would just not happen! What’s even more humbling is that there were several Parent Helpers who’s children no longer swim with the club that gave up their Sunday to help current CSSC swimmers. Whilst other successful club’s, such as Guildford, have a: ‘If you do not help your child does not swim’ policy, it really does display the Team Unity that we are continuing to build here City of Southampton SC.
Once again the ‘Stats’ tell the story! No matter what anyone tells you – these positive results reflect the hard work the Swimmers & Coaching Staff are putting into this club. We really do have the potential here at CSSC to be a really successful club, I believe some of the swimmers are starting to realise this and getting ahead of their opposition.
With over 82 medal winners and 11 pages of results above I am afraid I cannot mention you all.
| Gold medals | 31 | | Silver medals | 29 | | Bronze medals | 22 | | Other top 8 finishes | 135 | | National qualifying times | 2 | | SE Region qualifying times | 74 | | Hampshire qualifying times | 191 | | Personal best times | 197 |
As you would imagine I was over the moon with some of the results: Ben Stevens (11yrs) going 1:07.99 and being several seconds inside the National Qualifying Time for 100m Butterfly would be one and Ashley Ball’s (14yrs) first time under that 60sec barrier for 100m Butterfly going 59.89 (again inside the National QT) would be another.
However, one of the swims of the day was seeing 15 year old Calum Whitehead achieve his first ever County Qualifying time in the 200m Free going 2:14.62. Yet there were 191 swims inside the County Qualifying Time so how come Dave can make a big thing of just one!
Well… Both Calum and I know and understand that he is not going to be a National Champion, but you miss the point if you think like this. Since Calum came into the programme he has worked his socks off, prior to arriving at CSSC he had been written off! Sport is all about being the best you can be, for Callum the Hampshire QT was his goal, he has worked for it and I for one was really delighted when he achieved this ‘his personal’ goal!
It was also really good to see CSSC swimmers take all the cash in the Medley Skins, of course these swimmers have yet to understand their coach has to received 50% of the winnings! I await to be paid!It was really pleasing to see a 14 year old boy in the last 3 of the Mens skins, why you may ask? When there were 3 x CSSC 14 year old girls in the last 3 of the Ladies skins? Well you have to understand the physiology of the situation – 14 year old girls are much more advanced in maturation than 14 year old boys. Most girls at 14 years old are fully grown or almost fully grown, whilst the male maturation takes a lot longer some males are not fully grown until the mid to late 20’s. So when 14 year old Karl Heather takes on the likes of 25 year old Alistair Garmendia and 19 year old Jamie O’Donnell in all four strokes…. You see it is something special.
Swim Hard to Win
David Terry
Head Coach |
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