11 May 2008 - Report from Livingston Graded report
Livingston Graded Meet – Saturday 10th May 2008
What better way to spend a bright sunny Saturday than by the pool? A consensus shared by a small cohort of swimmers who chose to attend the LDD annual graded meet. Each of the swimmers arrived with a positive outlook for the day, and a display of impeccable behaviour and good team spirit was displayed by all.
First in the pool was Gregor, one of the youngest swimmers in the meet for his 50m Butterfly. He got the team off to a good start with a great personal best time. In the girls equivalent, Leah also with a PB, secured the teams’ first finals place of the morning. This succession of PBs was mirrored in the boys 13/14 years 100m Backstroke with Cody and Thomas both achieving personal best times, with another finals place for DCA secured - this time by Thomas. Enthused by the early positive results, Cody and Daisy swiftly followed suit in the 13/14 100m Butterfly securing a further two finals places!!! So far, the morning had proved promising, and with four swimmers going in finals some medals were well within our reach.
Following a brief interlude and a chance for our finalists to get some invaluable guidance from their coach Drew the finals were upon us. Leah was first up for DCA, going in the girls 12/U 50m Butterfly. After a good swim, she managed to bring home the first medal of the day for DCA – a silver. Next up was Thomas in the 13/14 100m Backstroke. Following an almost textbook swim, Thomas swam home to an excellent victory with a good lead over the competition bagging a well deserved first place and the first Gold medal of the day for DCA. Spurred on by these successes and hungry for a piece of the action, Cody brought home a bronze for the boys in the 100m butterfly, whilst Daisy was just touched out into fourth place in a gutsy finals performance. All in all it was a successful morning of swimming with three medals, one of each flavour, and numerous PB’s…what more could we expect come afternoon? The kids were confident of emulating their morning swims; however the proof as always would be in the pool…
The afternoon seen another positive start from our youngest swimmer Gregor in the boys 12/U 50 Freestyle gaining his second PB of the day! This run of PBs continued throughout the afternoon with Leah and Cody getting another two in their first swims of the afternoon. Finals places at this point however were eluding us…A change of fortune came mid afternoon as Daisy had a fantastic 100m breaststroke, securing the first afternoon finals position for DCA!!! Gregor, this time in the 50m breaststroke (12/U) was just outside his personal best time but still managed to give the older boys a run for their money and with three years left in this age group his future looks promising. In the same event for girls, Robin just missed out on a PB whilst Leah got her fourth PB of the day and a second afternoon finals place for DCA. Not to be outdone by the girls and their run of good swims, Thomas was up next in the 13/14 100m Freestyle. With a superb PB Thomas managed to win the first speeding ticket of the day for DCA. In response Jenny managed to swim her way to a massive 9 second PB in an excellent 100m Freestyle swim. Daisy having another good swim In the same event secured herself a finals place and further opportunity for a medal!!! Going by the heat times it was clear the finals would be closely contested, we could only hope swimmers would convert their promising heat swims into medal winning finals swims…Again, Drew was on hand with some words of wisdom to help them all achieve the most from their final swims!
Following another brief break, during a well organised smoothly run meet our first finalist of the afternoon was ready to go! Daisy in the girls 13/14 100m Breaststroke, going in lane 4, took on the race and led from the outset to bring home gold for DCA. Up next, Leah bagged us our third gold of the day in the 12/U 50 m breaststroke with a PB on her heat time and her 5th PB of the day bringing the DCA medal total to 5. Exuding confidence from her earlier swims, Daisy had another great swim in the girls 100m Free, clawing back the field in the final 25m to bring home her 2nd medal of the day; a well deserved silver. With a total of six medals already, in the final event of the day the girls’ 4 x 50m Freestyle relay team were in with a chance of raising this total to 7. Going in lane 1 of a straight final the girls had as much chance as anyone, and with no times entered it would seem this was an open event which was there for the taking. The two 12/U girls led the relay off well however were struggling to keep up with the competition, by the end of the first hundred the three leading teams appeared massively out of our reach. With the fourth position team in lane 2 also a good 10 metres clear of us - it looked like it was all over. Unphased however, Daisy dived in on leg three of the relay for her last swim of a long and tiring day. On excellent form she managed to pull back the lead the fourth position team had over us which allowed Abbey to start the final leg in a clear fourth position. At this point it was clear DCA could do nothing about first and second place, news to us however was that with a time only team in third position at this point; the race for bronze was still very much on. Swimming well over the 50m Abbey not only managed to maintain the lead over our closest competitors in the neighbouring lane but moreover managed to increase it and allow the team to finish comfortably in 3rd place. Bringing home a DCA bronze, a smile and a group of four happy swimmers the relay team did themselves proud. This was a fitting end to a pleasant day which saw a total of 7 medals (3 Gold, 2 Silver and 2 Bronze), one speeding ticket and 14 PB’s from only 8 swimmers – Well done!!!
Lee-Anne Harvey