Norwich Meet Report
A total of 24 swimmers travelled to Norwich, which is in Norfolk in the East of England for the City of Norwich Swimming Club Easter Meet.
This is the fourth year in a row that Hamilton Aquatics have attended the meet, which attracts swimmers from all over the UK and it is the second year in a row that the team have won the trophy for Top Visiting Club. This was achieved by accumulating more points over all races than any other team, the points were awarded from 1st place down to 8th place, making this a fantastic team effort.
Points were also added up for each swimmer and split into age groups. Cameron Matthews came 2nd in the Boys 9/10 years age group. Tiana Spear came 3rd and Molly Gowans came 1st in the Girls 11/12 years age group. Alex Millington cam 2nd and Joshua Laisequilla came 1st in the Boys 11/12 years age group.
There were some outstanding individual performances through out, the first was in the first event by trip captain, Christopher Allan who stormed to a British National Qualifying Time in the Men’s 1500m Freestyle meaning he can now compete at not only the Youth Championships in July but the Open Water Nationals as well.
It cannot go unmentioned that Molly Gowans managed to break the Scottish National Age Group Record for the Girls 11 Years 100m Freestyle and 800m Freestyle, this is a remarkable achievement alone and she is now ranked number one in the UK for seven different events.
Jakub Karl achieved a British National Qualifying Time in the Boys 200m Freestyle meaning he can now compete in both the 200m and 100m events.
Lewis Burras, Tiana Spear and Alex Millington all just missed out on British National Qualifying times with fantastic swims in their best events and will now chase the Qualifying times at the UAE Meet which Hamilton is hosting in the middle of April.
The four young boys in the 9/10 year old age group, Hazem Zahab, Etienne Tillon, Cameron Matthews and Ryan Pinto did the club proud with some great determination and PB’s.
Every swimmer came back with at least one personal best time and nearly all swimmers came back with a medal or having made one of the highly contested finals.
Before the competition the team relaxed by playing several games of rounder’s in the glorious weather and taking a trip into Norwich City Centre where the swimmers enjoyed watching “Hop” in the cinema and cheered themselves up with some light retail therapy! On the Monday after the competition the team had a fantastic trip to Thorpe Park, even Joshua was persuaded to get on the rollercoaster’s…not as much can be said about some of the scared parents!
A big thanks from me must go to Makenzie Johnson and Christopher Allan who captained the team with great leadership and maturity during the entire trip.
It was a fantastic meet all round for every swimmer and I hope that as many swimmers as possible can attend the meet next year and not miss out on the fun and fast swimming!
Full Team: (Ryan Pinto, Cameron Matthews, Etienne Tillon, Hazem Zahab, Molly Gowans, Tiana Spear, Lizzy Hancock, Taylor Ziarno, Tane Lindsay, Frazer Hanson, Julian Ulanowski, Lewis Burras, Jakub Karl, Joshua Laisequilla, Alex Millington, Lianna Swan, Abbey Hodgeson, Maisy Duncan, Nahla Gedeon-Achi, Andrew Montgomery, Makenzie Johnson, Charlotte Lechner,
James Loubser and Christopher Allan)
Ash Morris - Head Coach