Swimmers from Haddington, Musselburgh and Tranent compete in the final weekend of East District Age Groups Championships
Haddington, Musselburgh and Tranent swimmers took to the pool this weekend in the final round of this year’s District Championships, which was held at the Commonwealth pool in Edinburgh. After two very successful rounds held in November and January respectively, the three clubs this time took on the challenge of the sprint events.
The weekend kicked off on the Friday afternoon with the 200 IM, and the East Lothian swimmers got the medal rush going with seven medals. Stefan Krawiec (Tranent), Luke Hornsey (Musselburgh) and Calum Peebles (Tranent) claimed the Gold, Silver and Bronze in the 12/U age group, with Stefan’s time claiming him the 11 Years Long Course Scottish Age Group Record. Louisa Stoddart (Haddington) picked up her first medal of the weekend with a silver in the 13 years final. Aidan Ballantyne, also of Haddington, picked up the Bronze in the 14 years, with Edward Alsop also claiming the Bronze medal in the 16 years. Bridget Lemasurier (Musselburgh) competed the first day of racing for East Lothian with a Silver in the Girls 16 years final.
Saturday arrived with 167 heat swims form over 70 swimmers from the East Lothian clubs, setting up a busy finals session up with 49 finals to be contested. The first medal of the evening went to Stefan Krawiec, who claimed the Gold medal in the 12/U 50 Breaststroke. Stefan then proceeded to claim an additional three Gold medals, in the 100 Back, 50 Butterfly and the 100 Free. Louisa Stoddart was our next swimmer to get onto the podium, with a Bronze medal in the 50m Breaststroke 13 years. And like Stefan, she continued to perform extremely well, picking up the Gold medal in the 50m Butterfly later that evening. In the Girls 16 years 50m Breaststroke final, we had Bridget Lemasurier and Christen Russell (Haddington) who both battled it out to win the Gold and Bronze medals respectively. Luke Hornsey continued his good form by picking up the Silver Medals in the 100m Backstroke, 50m Butterfly and 100 Freestyle. Calum Peebles completed East Lothian second 1/2/3 of the weekend with a Bronze medal in the 100m Backstroke. Sean Craigmile (Haddington) claimed a Bronze medal in the 15 years 100m Backstroke and then later in the session also picked up a Bronze medal in the 100 Freestyle, both in impressive new pb times. Grace Courtney (Musselburgh) claimed her first medal of the weekend in the 12/U 50 Butterfly, with her fellow Musselburgh team member Iona Wilson, who also picked up a Bronze medal in the 14 years 50 Butterfly final. Aidan Ballantyne picked up his second medal of the weekend, with a Bronze in the 100 Freestyle 14 years final. Our final individual medal of the Saturday evening was claimed by Meagan Porteous (Musselburgh), who finished in the Silver medal position, narrowly missing out on the top spot in the 13 years 100 Free final. The evening was finished off with a fantastic relay swim from the Tranent quartet of Harvey Orr, Stefan Krawiec, Calum Peebles and Findlay Brown, who clinched the Bronze medal in an incredibly competitive 11-12 4x50 Freestyle relay.
Sunday, and the last day of the championships arrived with even more heat swims, 162, and an even greater number of finals, 55, for the East Lothian swimmers to contest in the evening finals session. The first final of the night saw Stefan Krawiec claim another Gold, with his team mate Luke Hornsey once again claiming the Silver medal. Both boys went on to claim additional through the evening, with Stefan picking up another three Gold medals, in the 50m Back, 100m Butterfly and 50m Freestyle. Both the 50m Backstroke and 100m Butterfly where again under the old Scottish National Age Group Record standards, taking Stefan’s record tally to three for the weekend. Luke claimed silvers in the 50m Backstroke, 100m Butterfly and 50m Freestyle. The medal rush continued in the 100m Breaststroke with Aidan Ballantyne picking up the Bronze medal in the 14 years. Bridget Lemasurier and Christen Russell once again were contesting for glory in the same final, and again came away with the Gold and Bronze medals. Louisa Stoddart continued her excellent run of form at the championships with a Bronze medal in the 13 years final. Louisa then proceeded to claim the Gold Medal in the 100m Butterfly later in the session. Iona Wilson, buoyed from her success in the 50m Butterfly, claimed her second medal of the championships with a Bronze in the 14 years 100m Butterfly final. Edward Alsop continued to bring the East Lothian clubs success with a closely fought Silver medal in the 16 years 100m Butterfly final. Grace Courtney returned to the pool and claimed herself a Silver medal in the 12/U 100m Butterfly final. Sean Craigmile’s excellent performances continued with a Bronze in the 50m Backstroke, 15 years final. The final individual event of the Championships was the blue ribbon 50m Freestyle, and East Lothian medal rush showed no signs of slowing. Aidan Ballantyne and Sean Craigmile both returned to the pool one final time and came away with a Bronze medal a piece. Meagan Porteous once again finished off the individual efforts with an outstanding Gold medal in the 13 Years 50m Free final, dropping considerable time off her pb to finish in a time of 28.90. This years championships were finished off with an outstanding performance from Tranent’s relay team, which again consisted of Harvey, Stefan, Calum and Findley. The boys swam out their skins, missing out on the Gold by only 0.1 of a second, to finish in the silver medal position.
The racing was competed, but the overall awards were still yet to be announced. Stefan Krawiec won Best Boys in the 12/U age group, with Edward Alsop also claiming Best Boy in the 16 Years age group. Stefan Krawiec and his Coach William Suayngam claimed the prestigious Andrew Taylor Memorial Trophy (Swimmer Award) and the Bobby Greenlees Memorial Trophy (Coaches Award) for the overall best performance based on Fina points. This is William Suayngam’s third year in a row of winning this award.
Bruce Halloran, ELST Head Coach said, “We had been extremely impressed with our results in the previous two rounds, but the weekend has blown all that away. To come away with 46 medals is a huge return and a massive improvement on last years, 36 medals. For the East Lothian swimming community to have such a representation at the Districts is fantastic, with over 70 swimmers from the three clubs. This number puts East Lothian as a county second, only behind Warrender, the biggest club in Scotland, in term of swimmers qualifying for the championships.”
“I would like to say a massive thank you to all my fellow coaches from across East Lothian for making the weekend such an overwhelming success, and also a huge congratulation to William Suayngam, who is the only coach to have won the Bobby Greenlees trophy three time in a row”
“ Our next target is the National Age Championships in March, so the swimmers will be getting their heads down and aiming to build upon the successes achieved this weekend”
