Sheffield – October 23rd – 25th

EAST were well and truly represented at Sheffield, we had the third highest number of swimmers across all clubs which isn’t too bad for a little club from Norwich who weren’t originally in it to compete!

There were some truly fantastic swims across the weekend which resulted in PBs, SBs and of course, medals with the highlights and special mentions below for your perusal as well as a full overview of all of the results –

First and foremost we have to bring to the attention of everyone the achievements of Kate Warwick, having won the treble at the Long Course Nationals in June for the 50, 100 & 200 Breaststroke, she only bloody well did it again and took home the Short Course titles too smashing her PBs in the process whilst dominating each race leaving everyone else eating her bubbles!

The 200 Breaststroke on Saturday night was particularly epic given she got out, somewhat recovered and then joined Sarah O, Emily & Lisa for the 4×200 Freestyle relay! The relay in which there were three teams in the 120+ age group actually meant a race on their hands with everyone else in the heat the only ones in their respective age groups, determined to better the silver from the last two years, Gold was won comfortably with brilliant swims from all three and what is now known as ‘stealth mode’ from Lisa in taking down our nearest rival!

Pat Jackson, swimming some of the hardest events, somewhat putting the rest of us to shame with how many events she swam over the weekend won the 100 & 200 Fly, 100, 200IM & 400IM and adding silver in the 50 Fly

Terry Thorne was our final superstar in terms of medal haul taking home two Bronze medals in the 50 Breaststroke and 50 Fly and a Silver in the 50 Freestyle; making it three out of three.

Phill kicked off proceedings on Friday morning, the only EAST swimmer in the 1500m, taking home bronze in the process and the first medal of the weekend.

Josie swam an incredible 200 Fly to take home a bronze medal and made the right decision to pull out of the 1500m in order to be fully rested.

Relay medals for the 200+ age group in the 4×50 Medley & Freestyle were won by Claire, Pat, Josie & Jane P though technically, and is in printed form, the Medley relay has been attributed to the 120+ girls! A slight error on the timing suite’s part it would appear!

The mens 72+ age group of David B, James, Dave W and Adam also took home bronze against a very tough field of teams making Friday particularly successful in terms of the medal haul.

The final medal won by team EAST was by Mrs Price who, all weekend failed to hit the wall hard enough so her splits couldn’t be taken and despite the time eventually showing up as 2 minutes something for her 100 Fly, she actually came home in a 1:10 and took home bronze which most definitely had her smiling all evening!

We also had a few first timers for Nationals at Ponds Forge and with special mention to Claire, Jane P, Jon, Sarah A, James and Nick.

Nick who was like a kid at Christmas all weekend, was very excited to say the least and couldn’t wait to get going with a 33. split for the 50 Breaststroke in the relay somewhat calming his nerves and setting him up to smash his events.

This was also whilst being the resident lifeguard, he was luckily on hand to point out to the actual lifeguard who was meant to be watching that another swimmer was in difficulty at the end of her race, he went onto run to the rescue with a towel for the swimmer seeing as not one member of staff thought to do that. Clearly haven’t been trained as well…

Jon also had a brilliant weekend avoiding the curse of Newmarket with no DQs on any of his races and brimming smiles when getting out of the pool having PBd once again.

Claire who almost didn’t make it having thought she had to pull out had a good weekend too in her two events, plus the two relay medals made it a worthwhile trip up north!

Jane P too swam well, PBs falling in every single race and she too came away with two bronze medals from the relays.

Sarah A who overcame sickness, made her way up for the Saturday breaststroke events.

James, the baby of the team, swam in his first Nationals as a Senior in 6 events and PBd in every single one as well as some good splits in the relays taking home a bronze for his efforts too.

A special mention also goes to Mr Webster who showed everyone how its done in the self named ‘King of Strokes’ backstroke events – 50, 100 & 200m. PBs all absolutely smashed and probably the winner of the accolade of the best photographs taken of the weekend by DE Photo which I urge you to check out!  http://goo.gl/Wkbsgj – Photos 4494-SH/ 4495-SH

Sam rocked up on the Sunday to do three events, which could not be more different – the 50 Free, 50 Fly and 800 Free! The 800 Free was quite the spectacle and despite going out like a rocket as we all predicted, he held on well and paced the race brilliantly finishing in 9:43 and was just pipped to a bronze medal – a distance ‘career’ beckons it would seem!

All in all a brilliant weekend for Team EAST with lots of laughter and good swims to boot. Perfectly summed up by Nick I believe when chatting about the club in that we have a great mix of people who all want to swim well, train hard all in a great atmosphere which truly showed at the weekend, smiles all round!

The full breakdown of Team EASTs events & times are below –

Adam
100m Breaststroke – 1:16.57
50m Backstroke – 7 33.82
100m IM – 1:11.08
50m Breaststroke – 13 35.30

Clare
400m Freestyle – 5:53.66
50m Freestyle – 34.40

David B
200m IM – 2:50.61
200m Freestyle – 2:30.12
100m IM – 1:16.67
100m Freestyle – 1:09.46

David W
50m Backstroke – 29.42
200m Backstroke – 2:18.57
100m Backstroke – 1:02.41

Emily
200m Freestyle – 2:30.41
400m Freestyle – 5:18.53
100m IM – 1:21.76
50m Breaststroke – 42.54
800m Freestyle – 11:01.23

Emmeline
100m Breaststroke – 1:31.80
50m Breaststroke – 41.96
100m Butterfly – 1:37.50
50m Butterfly – 36.84

Hanna
100m Butterfly – 1:19.10
100m Freestyle – 1:07.76
50m Freestyle – 30.48
50m Butterfly – 33.58

James
50m Backstroke – 33.92
100m IM -1:11.75
100m Freestyle – 1:01.72
50m Freestyle – 27.19
100m Backstroke – 1:12.37
50m Butterfly – 30.88

Jane P
200m Freestyle – 2:51.50
100m Breaststroke – 1:37.71
100m IM – 1:30.59
50m Breaststroke – 42.79
200m Breaststroke – 3:33.70
50m Freestyle – 32.61

Jane T
200m Butterfly – 3:08.71
100m Butterfly – 1:21.79
100m Freestyle – 1:13.05
50m Butterfly – 34.54

Jon
200m Freestyle – 2:54.72
400m Freestyle – 6:27.31
100m Freestyle – 1:19.37
50m Freestyle – 35.32

Josie
200m Butterfly – 2:55.96

Kate M
200m IM – 3:06.32
100m IM – 1:26.33
100m Freestyle – 1:14.08
50m Freestyle – 32.26

Kate W
100m Breaststroke – 1:16.04
50m Breaststroke – 35.48
200m Breaststroke – 2:49.85
50m Freestyle – 28.82

Lisa
100m IM – 1:15.83
100m Butterfly – 1:10.22
100m Freestyle – 1:04.17
50m Freestyle – 29.27
50m Butterfly – 31.68

Nick
100m Breaststroke – 1:16.41
50m Breaststroke – 34.48

Pat
200m IM – 3:40.87
200m Butterfly – 3:45.80
50m Backstroke – 45.41
100m IM – 1:40.43
100m Butterfly – 1:40.31
400m IM – 7:54.14
50m Butterfly – 41.69

Phill
1500m Freestyle – 18:52.89
200m Freestyle – 2:17.08
Freestyle – 4:48.24
400m IM – 5:39.50
800m Freestyle – 9:55.54

Sam
50m Freestyle – 26.48
50m Butterfly – 27.77
800m Freestyle – 9:43.93

Sarah A
50m Breaststroke – 46.88
200m Breaststroke – 4:01.15

Sarah O
200m Freestyle – 2:24.60
100m Butterfly – 1:13.95

Terry
50m Breaststroke – 40.78
50m Freestyle – 30.48
50m Butterfly – 34.89