The City of Bristol Christmas Cracker event took place over the weekend 16/17th of December at Hengrove pool Bristol. This year Swindon Dolphin sent a small team of swimmers to take part in this annual event including 2 swimmers from Junior National Squad, 4 from Regional Squad and 4 from the Senior National Squad. This small team competed in 44 events over the weekend and achieved 23 Lifetime Personal Best times, 5 new Regional Qualifying Times and 10 new Regional Consideration Times.
Two Dolphin Club records were also broke over the weekend. Denice Gardo first broke her own 100m Backstroke record setting a new record time of 1.05.16 before going on to take Kat Rees’s 50m Backstroke record with a new club record time of 31.08. Kat’s previous record was one of the longer standing club records having been set in 2002. This means that Denice now holds all of the Girls Long and Short Course Club 50m / 100m & 200m Backstroke records.
Record Breaker – Denice Gardo
Harri ‘muscles‘ Crook had a very rewarding weekend with 8 PB’s from 9 swims achieving 2 new RQT’s and 2 new RCT’s . The only swim not completed in a PB time was the 200m Individual Medley which immediately followed the gruelling 400m Freestyle, a recovery and preparation period too short even for Harri.
Harri Crook
A special mention goes to Liam Jefferies who only returned to swimming 8 months ago and is now beating lifetime PB’s . On Saturday Liam lowered his 100m Freestyle time to a Regional Qualifying 52.63 then his 50m Fly with a Regional Consideration Time of 27.46. Also joining the ever growing ranks of the Dolphin 2018 Regional Qualifiers list was Aimee Masters (100m Backstroke), Nigel Masters (100m Breaststroke) and Alice Lockey (200m Fly) – all hitting new Regional Consideration Times.
All the Dolphin swimmers either achieved PB’s, regional times or came close to both and continue to improve. Medal winners from the weekend include:
Harri Crook – Gold in the Boys 12yr 400m Freestyle & 200m Fly, Silver Boys 12yr 400m IM, 200m Free & 100m Fly and Bronze in the 50m Boys 12yr Fly.
Regan Jefferies – Silver in the Boys 15yr & Over 200m Breaststroke, Bronze in the 50m Boys 15yr & Over Breaststroke,
Denice Gardo – Silver in the Girls 15yr & Over 50m Backstroke, Bronze in the Girls 15yr & Over 100m Backstroke.
Liam Jefferies – Bronze in the Boys 15yrs & Over 100m Freestyle.
Mackenzie Jeffery – Bronze in the Girls 12yr 50m Backstroke.
The Dolphin team came 11th out of the 29 teams attending the meet which was impressive considering the very large teams attending from high performance squads from all over the south of the country. Lead Coach Andy Alexander – “This was a good weekend for the Dolphin swimmers and a great way to start the Christmas training period and points towards a good Wiltshire Championships to come in January“.
