Head Coaches Report

Exeter City Swimming Club made their presence felt at the second round of the Devon championships for 2008 with a haul of 23 medals and 43 finalist places. The city team competed across the range of ages with 19 different swimmers making the top six for an event, and their collection of medals were awarded to 15 swimmers. 
 
The open age championship events are the prize events to win, yet once again they were dominated over the weekend by the squads from Plymouth & Kelly College. Exeter placed four swimmers in five out of the ten championship finals. Alex Wooldridge, 16, swam a pb of 2:13.10 to place 4th in the 200m butterfly, and followed that up with a 6th placed finish in the 400m IM in a time of 4:47.25. Rebecca Jenkins, 17, posted a 31.88 to qualify for the 50m backstroke final where she swam a 32.05 to place 5th. 15yr-old Maria Graney made her first championship final in the 100m backstroke recording a time of 1:08.24 to finish 6th, and Laura Sprague, 16, also swam to a 6th placed finish in the 400m freestyle in a time of 4:36.13.
 
Plymouth & Kelly College draw swimmers from around the country with financial aid to attend their private schools, and this makes it difficult for local Devon swimmers to place at their own county championships when up against such widespread quality.
 
Leading the weekend for Exeter in the age group events with two fine individual victories was Maria Griss, 13, who won the 200m breaststroke and 400m freestyle by clear margins. Maria is starting to develop a winning competitive edge to her racing and these two wins is just reward for her efforts.
 
At just 9 years old Tina Song-Ashdown is new to the Devon swimming scene, and she produced a superb final swim to be clear winner of the 200m breaststroke and can now call herself Devon champion for 2008.
 
Alex Wooldridge bettered his pb again in the final of the 16/over 200m butterfly with a time of 2:12.81 to collect the silver, and he matched that medal position with a 2nd place in the 400m IM.
 
Rebecca Hitt, 14, shrugged off an illness from two days before the weekend to record two pb's in the breaststroke events. Her times of 1:23.13 for the 100m & 2:56.68 were both good enough for silver medal places.
 
10yr-old Ed Jackson pushed the winner of the 100m IM all the way to the finish recording a 4sec pb to collect the silver in a time of 1:24.75, and he showed his strength to add to his medal collection with a bronze in the 200m butterfly. Joe Cotterill, 11, picked up his first medal of this years campaign with a silver in the 200m butterfly with a superb time of 3:07.29.
 
Maria Graney, 15, came off her championship final swim to finish second in a closely fought 100m backstroke in a time of 1:08.32, and missed the gold by the narrowest of margins in what was a blanket finish in the 50m backstroke with a time of 32.33 - the winner recording 32.20 and 2nd place 32.31.
 
Laura Sprague, 16, added to her medal tally for the year with a silver in the 400m freestyle in 4:36.49 and a bronze in the 200m breaststroke with a time of 2:52.29. Annie Tinsley, 15, also swam to silver medal position in her age group 400m freestyle with a time of 4:36.77.
 
Adele Shire, 10, continued her success from the first weekend of the championships with two bronze medal placings, both in personal best times. Her time of 3:30.48 for the 200m breaststroke and 5:49.62 for the 400m freestyle were also Western County qualifying times and add to the time she gained last week in the 200m backstroke. Her results are a sure sign that the work she puts in during training is paying dividends.
 
12yr-old Amy Cole produced two excellent swims in the finals of the 100m & 200m breaststroke to take her first ever Devon County medal with a bronze in each event in times of 1:25.20 & 3:04.34 respectively, the former being her first ever Western qualifying time, and again a testament to her hard work in training.
 
National finalist Sally Whybra, 14, again produced quality swims recording pb's through her range of events, and collecting a bronze in the 100m breaststroke with a time of 1:24.24 and a bronze in the 400m freestyle with a sub 4:40 in a time of 4:39.95. Her 4th place finish in the 200m breaststroke was also a pb, as was her time in the 100m backstroke where she finished 5th.
 
Helen Smith, 13, was not 100% healthy during the weekend, yet shook off the effects with an excellent outside lane final swim in the 400m freestyle to record a 7 second pb on the day and take the bronze medal along with it. She also hacked 5 seconds off her 200m breaststroke pb to take 5th place in the final.
 
Laura Shears, 12, raced a superb final in the 100m backstroke and was always in medal contention, and she cut almost 3 seconds from her pb to come away with a bronze.
 
Liam Spruce, 14, made four finals placing 4th in both his 50m breaststroke and 100m IM and placing 5th in the 200m butterfly and 400m IM. Rebecca Jenkins, 17, swam to four fourth places during the weekend finishing just outside the medals in the 50m & 100m backstrokes and the 100m breaststroke. Tom Wadeley-Jones finished 4th in the 100m freestyle, Sam Jackson, 13, placed 4th in his 200m butterfly and 6th in the 400m IM, and 15yr-old Louise McGowan swam to a 5th placed finish in the 100m backstroke.
 
Exeter coach Jon Randall was pleased with the city teams efforts over the weekends racing ' we produced results at the top end of what I could expect. We raced well through pretty much all age groups and all events. We've only just picked up training time that we lost in October and that has hit our background training, but we did a good job standing up and going head to head with the many national quality swimmers that have been attracted to the county by the education programmes. '

 

Links

Devon County ASA

ASA SouthWest

British Swimming