Deveron Sprints Report
Banff Buccaneers 21st March 2009
12 members of squad 2 travelled (well 13 if you include Karen who decided to get mum out of bed even although she was not swimming) to Banff on the Saturday morning to take part in the Deveron sprints. We were greeted with glorious sunshine in Banff, which makes the whole town sparkle.
But no matter how much sun we had it could not match the sparkle that the swimmers made in the pool. There were some fantastic results and all the swimmers put in PB performances, which reflects on the hard work that they put in during training.
We Pirated a good medal haul, (hence the title).
Joe Steel collected Gold for the 100 Im, and 50 Back, for the 50 Freestyle and a Bronze for the 50 Fly.
Shannon Cruickshank Collected Gold for 50 Bk and 50 Freestyle and a for 100IM
Eilidh Thomson Collected Gold for 50Brs and Bronze for 50 Bk, 100IM, and 50 Fly.
It was great to see the team picking up some medals, but just as important were the performances of the other swimmers who will be sure to be picking up medals soon given some of the outstanding performances that they put in. Rebecca Farmer even managed to smile her way to a PB on breaststroke and Matthew Mcpherson, despite scaring everyone with his “tooter”, managed to keep his ear drums intact and get off the blocks quick enough to post some good times.
Caitlin Pilkinton somehow managed to bribe her dad to take their second home to Banff, and rumours are still circulating that Caitlin tucked into a full roast, rather than warm sandwiches during lunch. Saying that, the bravery award must go to Caitlin's dad who managed to fit most of the squad into his mobile home for lunch. I hope they left it clean and tidy.
I must also mention the fantastic support that swimmers gave each other when racing and receiving medals. The noise added to the whole event and coaches from other clubs mentioned what a great effort you put in supporting your teammates. Looks like we will have to continue with this, especially following on from getting "Best Supported Club" at the Aberdeen Medley meet.
Joking aside, as always when swimmers return from gala’s, there are swimmers points that they must work on to improve performances at the next meet.
I think the major ones were turns, dives, and equipment, i.e. goggles coming off during dives. The latter is probably a result of not tucking the chin in during the dive.
As I said above the performances really were good and the swimming between the flags really was fantastic stuff.
As always it’s onwards and upwards and we will reinforce the many good points in training, and will rectify the few areas that need working on.
Well done swimmers, you were a credit to the club and more importantly to yourselves.