REN96 swimmers’ hard work since August has clearly paid off as the club’s squad swimmers excelled at the first weekend of the West District Short Course Championship at Glasgow’s Tollcross pool.
Saturday 21st October saw 20 of REN96’s younger swimmers head to Tollcross to compete in 73 events, achieving 47 Personal Best (PB) times. If that wasn’t impressive enough they won a total of 18 medals, including 9 Gold, 7 Silver and 2 Bronze.
Lead Coach Alan Dickson said “It’s great to see all the early season effort being translated into results in the water. The strike rate in terms of PBs was really pleasing. There were some brilliant individual performances, but I have to mention our 11 year olds Ella and Rhys both of who tackled 400m freestyle for the first time and did a great job - well done both. Also Jack’s 1500m freestyle was a brilliant effort - on the way to a 31 second PB he beat his 200m, 400m and 800m times. 4 PBs at the same time - hard to beat! Medals are great for the swimmers that get on the podium but they only tell part of the story. Every swimmer at Tollcross today will have learned something they will be able to bring to the table the next time they compete. This is the first real measure of where our swimmers are in relation to last year and a great springboard for what is to come this season.”
The photos show the whole team who competed on the Saturday and coaches Ross McCafferty, Alan Dickson and Heather Allan.
Whilst REN96’s younger swimmers shone on Saturday, the club’s senior swimmers took things to another level on Sunday at Tollcross.
Several top squad swimmers along with Head Coach Ross McCafferty returned at 6pm the night before from a week long training camp and went straight into action, no mean feat considering the swimmers had each covered a total of 77,000 metres, as well as fitness and stretching programmes, at the training camp.
Ross said before the start “It’s not really about the times today, rather it’s about building on certain specific skills we worked on last week as well as bringing the week to a close.”
The top squad were joined by some of the club’s older age group swimmers, with 15 swimmers in total taking part in 40 events, achieving 15 PBs and winning 9 medals.
Lead coach Alan Dickson gave a special mention and “well done” to age groupers Ada and Matthew who took on the 800m freestyle for the first time.
As if competing, PBs and medals weren’t enough, Sunday’s action was expertly commentated on by REN96’s very own Magnus from the club’s top squad, who had been asked by West District to act as MC for the day - well done Magnus!
Team success like this wouldn’t happen without the support of a team of helpers and REN96 give huge thanks to Lindsay, Michelle, Callum, Rihanna and Angela for helping keep the swimmers on track and motivated.
The second weekend of this double header will be held early in November - watch out for more success from REN96.
Allan Kelly for Ren96
