The swimming talent of the future was on show at the Link Centre last night at the Novice Progress Gala. Sixty six swimmers took part in the meet that gave them the opportunity to race over 25m of each stroke and a 100m individual medley.
It was the younger age groups that really impressed on the night. In the youngest 7 and under age group, Denice Gardo showed her versatility by winning all five events and Daniel Farley was top boy with two wins out of two entered. The boys 8 year age group was dominated by James Chantler with 5 clear wins. Meanwhile in the girls 8 years contest, some closely fought battles between Katy Coleman and Georgia Dicks spurred both on to some superb swims with a dead heat in the freestyle and Coleman just having the edge in the other encounters.
Other notable performances came from 9 year old James Watson who was denied a clean sweep of wins by some fine competition from Conor McGilligan, the boys taking three and two wins respectively. Credit also goes to those swimmers attempting all five events including 9 year old Amber Davies, Charlotte Brooker, Laura Brown, 10 year olds Craig Harris, Mya Bell and Imogen Nelson, 11 year old Emma Horton and 12 years and over Sophie Brooker and Bethan Jones.
Denice Gardo, Georgia Dicks and James Chantler ~ all gave impressive performances
Gala organiser Jacky Gardo did a superb job of co-ordinating all the volunteers for the evening and it was also an opportunity for trainee officials to get in some competition practice. The evening also included a mum’s and dad’s race which saw Paula Palmer comfortably beat her five male opponents, and a demonstration race by six Olympic and Junior Olympic Squad swimmers, giving all the Novice competitors a glimpse into their own future.
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