Christmas News Round Up – Short Course Season complete!
The traditional short course season came to an end this December with some superb performances across the club.
National Arena League
Following the English Schools’ Championship success in November, on December 8th Repton Swimming took on the 7 other top clubs in the West Midlands, in the final round of the Regional stage of the National Arena League. The Premier League final was in Rugby, where Repton took on Worcester, City of Coventry, Derby Excel, Leamington Spa, Redditch, Solihull and Belper. Our B Team were in West Bromwich in their final round.
The performances from across the age groups in the 51 event competition were exceptional with a high level of skill and commitment demonstrated. Repton had the winner in 30 of the 51 events, to dominate the competition and create a large winning margin. This now allows the club to go forward into the National Arena League Final with the country’s top ten clubs on March 3rd 2024 in Cardiff as Champions of the West Midlands Arena League Premier Division.
Full results of the Premier Division Final can be found here: Premier Division - Gala 1 - Round 3 Results.xlsx (nationalswimmingleague.org.uk)
In addition, our B Team completed a fine win in their final round too, leaving them in 5th place in Division 2, just outside the promotion spots, with the aim of gaining promotion next year. A fine outcome for the B Team in their first year in this division, winning 26 out of the 51 races on the evening.
Full results: Division 2 - Gala 2 - Round 3 Results.xlsx (nationalswimmingleague.org.uk)
Ian Pollock, Chair of Repton Swimming, said: “For the club to reach the national final just 4 years since our inception is a remarkable achievement and the performance in Rugby for the regional final was exceptional. To be ranked in the country’s top ten clubs so quickly is fabulous for the club, the Coaching Team and our swimmers.”
Swim England National Winter Short Course Championships
In December, the end of the short course season arrived with racing at the Swim England National Winter Championships. This event, held at Pond Forge in Sheffield, saw 32 swimmers from our Performance Squads having qualified for the competition alongside some of the best swimmers in the UK.
With over 85% of swimmers achieving personal best times over the course of the meet, with a series of finals and impressive performances, Repton had a very strong showing and it was tremendous to see so many of our swimmers compete on the national stage, some for the first time in this event.
In addition, a coningent of swimmers competed at Northampton in their end of cycle meet and three of our Elite Squad members were representing Great Britain at the Ontario Junior International Meet in Toronto, Canada. Eva Okaro, Holly Marshall and Mabli Collyer were all on international duty and all achieved impressive times across the 4 day event. Eva’s achievements included being part of a Junior World Record in the Mixed Freestyle Relay.
Commenting on the competitions, Director of Swimming Ash Morris said: “We are very happy for the swimmers and their results at the target competitions in December. Throughout this cycle we have focused on being better with our skills, processes and training - this has resulted in huge PB’s at the Loughborough International Meet in October, then at Regionals and then again at competitions in December, which is a huge ask from the swimmers. The Short Course cycle can often lay the foundations for a positive season and we believe that the swimmers are in a fantastic spot to keep pushing on this season”
There were a large number of short course club records broken during this cycle too and congratulations to the 19 different swimmers who achieved this. You can see our Short Course Club Records here: Repton Swimming - Club Records (teamunify.com)
Plans for 2024
Repton now look forward to our New Year Meet on Friday 5th January (Repton Swimming - New Year Meet 5th January 2024 (teamunify.com) with nearly 800 individual swims to be raced on that day! In February, Repton will be joining the other clubs from Derbyshire at the County Championships, before 50 of our Performance Swimmers will be heading to Dubai for a training camp and to race at the Dubai International Open Meet.
