Head Coaches Report
A few select swimmers from Exeter City Swimming Club competed at the Western Counties senior & junior short course championships held at Weston-Super-Mare and came away with a senior bronze medal and a junior silver. Liam Spruce, 16, surprised some of the established district butterfly swimmers with a stunning swim in the 200m event qualifying for the final in 4th place with a 5 sec pb, then proceeded to knock another second off of that time to capture the senior bronze medal in a time of 2:12.45. Liam also produced a pb in finishing 15th in the 100m butterfly with a time of 1:01.1, a pb in the heats of the 200m breaststroke to qualify 4th for the final where he finished 6th, and he just missed out on the final of the 100m breaststroke placing 12th.
Jess Twose, 14, competing in her first Western short course championships posted a time of 30.90 in the final of the 50m backstroke to finish as 4th placed senior and capture the junior silver medal.
Warren Barrett, 22, finished just outside of the final in three events placing 11th in both the 50m butterfly and 50m freestyle and 12th in the 200m butterfly. 17yr old Maria Graney was right on her pb times with a 32.4 in the 50m backstroke for 15th place and 1:02.0 in the 100m freestyle for 23rd place overall. Vicky Sincock, 17, swam to 17th place in the open 400m freestyle with a time of 4:46.5.
Exeter coach Jon Randall was happy with the swims ‘I decided a while ago that it was best for quite a few of our swimmers to enter a level 3 meet at Tiverton instead of swim in these championships and with a couple of swimmers missing due to illness we were not that well represented at these championships. Weston is not a quick pool to swim in – it’s shallow, has bulk heads at each end and the anti-wave lane ropes are almost entirely below the surface which all together means that the water is incredibly wavy to swim in and does not produce quick times. Taking that into account the swims that we had were pretty good seeing as we only eased up for a day or two into a long weekend.’
Links
Devon County ASA
ASA SouthWest
British Swimming