Pipped By A Point In The Jubilee Gala!

After winning the Jubilee Cup for three years in a row, we just missed out on Saturday, finishing in second place just ONE POINT behind Weston-super-Mare!  It was a tremendously exciting evening in the wonderful 50m pool at Millfield School with eight teams battling it out in a series of relay races and fun events. We led for much of the evening with some excellent performances across the age groups and achieved 15 top 3 finishes out of the 27 events.

Swimming in a 50m long course pool is a completely different experience, especially for the younger swimmers, so every swimmer should be proud of the contribution they made to an excellent overall team performance.

In amongst the great performances were some worth a special mention. Firstly, Alana, Jack B, Hannah and Fergus’ win in the Balloon Relay, which they won by half the length of the pool, was excellent with Alana particularly keeping her cool after a tricky start. There was also a very close second for the Wine Waiter relay team of Saskia, Jack W, Lauren and Tim.

The Team Managers were particularly pleased with so many victories in the standard relay events. The Boys Breaststroke Relay team of Matt D, Martin, Tim and Nick comfortably won their event as did the Girls Backstroke team of Virginia, Alana, Hannah and Alice B. Alice was also a member of the victorious Mixed Medley Relay team with Holly, Seb and Liam. There was also a fine win for the Mixed Open Medley Relay team of Sarah, Matt D, Karli and Owen.

There were some very close races in which we were just beaten into second place. We kept up our excellent record as a great Breaststroke club with both young Relay teams coming close seconds; Alice, Mary, Hannah and Holly for the girls and Liam, Freddie, Fergus and George for the boys. We also had close seconds in the 10/u Boys Freestyle (Freddie, Sam, Jack B and Fergus) and the 12/u Girls (Alice W, Virginia, Holly and Alice B).  It was also good to see the older Boys Fly Relay team of Jake, Jonathan, Tim and Nick come a close second.

The team captains did an excellent job in motivating the team and it was good to see our swimmers supporting their teammates right to the end. We had lots of swimmers running alongside the pool cheering on those racing, often looking as if they were about to jump in and help!

So, in the end we just missed out but it was a very enjoyable evening swum in a good spirit between all the clubs. We now have a bit of a gap in our trophy cabinet, so we will have to go all out next year! 

A final ‘thank you’ to all parents and supporters who turned out to cheer us on, the noise was really noticeable from poolside and is very much appreciated by everyone in the team!

Some of the team who narrowly missed a fourth successive win in the Jubilee Gala