East Lothian Swim Team excel at Scottish National Age Groups

Outstanding results from the newly structured team

The East Lothian Swim Team travelled to Aberdeen last week for the Scottish National Age Group Championships.

The past year has been a huge change for ELST with a new committee, new coaches and many new swimmers. This meet would give coaches Bruce Halloran and Will Suayngam the opportunity to see how the swimmers would perform and come together as a team.

17 swimmers made the trip to Aberdeen with many of them never having competed at this level of competition before. With the likes of Hannah Miley, Ross Murdoch and Erraid Davies competing at the event, the swimmers had to deal with a mixture of nerves and excitement!

The team had 97 individual events and 3 relay events over the 6 days.

Sean Craigmile (12) swam the first race for ELST and brought home a gold medal in the 800m FC in a stunning time of 9.59.55. This was Sean’s debut at this level and he did not disappoint. Over the course of the meet, Sean swam 12 events with 11 of them being top 10 finishes, winning 6 medals.

Finlay Hart (14) also swam exceptionally well. Out of his 10 individual events, Hart had 4 top 10 finishes winning 2 medals in the 100m and 200m Butterfly.  

Ruth Thomson (14) smashed her personal best times in the majority of her events, making three finals and winning a well deserved bronze in the 50m Breaststroke.

Christen Russell (13) delivered in all of her 3 races, swimming huge personal best times in the 50m Breast, 100m Breast and 200m Breast to make all three finals.

Daniel Steedman (13) had 5 top 10 finishes from 12 events. Daniel had a fantastic meet, swimming personal best times in almost every swim he had.

Anna Balfour (14) narrowly missed out on the medals, having a good fight in her breaststroke events with team-mate Ruth. Anna swam 7 events, making 4 finals. Anna finished joint 8^th with team-mate Sarah Anderson (14) in the 100m FC. This was Sarah’s first final and swam a fantastic race, swimming almost identical times from heat to final.

Rosie Berwick (13) swam a huge personal best time to make the final of the 100m Backstroke. Handling the pressure well, she again swam under her old personal best time to finish just outside the medals in 4^th place.

Fiona Dickson (17), Fraser Samuel (17), Andrew McKnight (15), Lucy Lucas (12), Mia Blair (12), Catrina McManus (14), Craig Mellon (13), Charlie Smith (17) and Bridget Lemasurier (13) competed well with a high number of personal best times between them.

The girls 14-16 years relay finished well within the top 20. In the 4x200m FC relay and the 4x100m FC relay the girls finshed 16^th. The 4x100m Medley relay was excellent and they finshed a respectable 13^th place.

The overall statistics pleased the coaches. With 17 swimmers and 97 events there was an outstanding 32 top 10 finishes and 9 medals (3 Gold, 3 Silver and 3 Bronze).

The team finished in 19^th place overall out of a total of 50 teams. That is a phenomenal achievement for this newly structured team and Heach Coach Bruce Halloran was thrilled with the results.

Bruce commented – “I am delighted with the results. This year was a new start for the team and to have had such representation in so many finals and to have picked up so many medals is fantastic. This gives us a good platform to push forward from.”

Having had a day to process the results, there was a number of East Lothian team records broken from the meet. Some records were longstanding, dating back to 2006! 30 records were broken from the meet, again proving the the swimmers gave their all. Record breakers were – Christen Russell, Ruth Thomson, Anna Balfour, Catrina McManus, Sarah Anderson, Sean Craigmile, Daniel Steedman, Finlay Hart and Andrew McKnight. Interestingly, Andrew McKnight broke coach Will’s 50m FC record and Daniel Steedman lowered Cameron Smith’s (Musselburgh Head Coach)  1500m FC record – a sure sign that ELST has exciting times ahead.

 

List of the Top 10 finishes -

 

Sean Craigmile –

800m FC – GOLD in 9.59.55

200m Backstroke – GOLD in 2.35.43

400m FC – GOLD in 4.50.65

1500m FC – SILVER in 18.55.84

200m FC – SILVER in 2.19.82

50m Back – BRONZE in 34.26

100m FC – 4^th in 1.06.15

50m FC – 4^th in 30.47

50m Fly – 9^th in 34.18

100m Back – 5^th in 1.14.71

200m IM – 10^th in 2.45.38

 

Finlay Hart –

50m Fly – 4^th in 28.67

100m Fly – SILVER in 1.02.53

200m IM – 14^th in 2.31.95

200m Fly – BRONZE in 2.24.07

100m FC – 8^th in 1.00.19

 

Ruth Thomson –

200m Breast – 8^th in 2.51.70

50m Breast – BRONZE in 35.97

100m Breast – 4^th in 1.18.96

 

Christen Russell (13) –

100m Breast – 8^th in 1.25.67

200m Breast – 4^th in 2.54.59

50m Breast – 8^th in 38.75

 

Daniel Steedman (13) –

100m Back – 4^th in 1.11.89

50m Back – 10^th in 34.39

1500m FC – 6^th in 19.11.73

400m IM – 9^th in 5.32.80

 

Anna Balfour (14) –

100m FC – 8^th in 1.04.50

200m Breast – 9^th in 2.56.74

50m Breast – 4^th in 35.99

100m Breast – 7^th in 1.20.70

 

Sarah Anderson (14) –

100m  FC – 8^th in 1.04.50

 

Rosie Berwick (13) –

100m Back – 4^th in 1.13.48

 

For the full listing of results - http://www.swimscotland.co.uk/ 

 

Pictured - Sean Craigmile with his GOLD on day 1 from the 800m FC