Best Of The BEST Swimming Meet
The first of the Best of the BEST Shipping Series took place on Saturday, March 3rd at the Saltus Pool.
Sharks Coach Rob DeSilva is very proud of the performances from his group of Sharks. Out of 41 events, 35 PB’s were achieved. Madelyn ‘Blue’ Moore had an outstanding meet. She blazed her way to a AAA time in the 50 free as well as picking up two A times in her other events.
Jessie ‘JT’ Thomas had a great 50 Fly in which she picked up an A time, thus qualifying her for the Bermuda National Swim Team.
There were also notable swims from Shannon ‘Shabby’ Hassell, Brittany ‘Sparky’ Siddle and young Ethan Daley, as well as strong swims from all of the Sharks. This was a great beginning to the Best of BEST Series and he looks forward to more sensational swims in the coming weeks and months.
Sharks Head Coach and National Coach Ben Smith continued with the praise of the Sharks swimmers in this early test of the spring season. Several swimmers had very strong meets but there were some that stood out that deserve special mention.
Aaron Rego had a very good swim in the 50 fly where he made his first ‘A’ standard which qualifies him for the National Team and has him half qualified for this year’s Carifta games. Jesse Washington set a new age group record in the 50 fly with a ‘AAAA’ time in the event.
Philip Hagen has been working extremely hard for this day and it was very exciting to see him have a breakthrough meet with 3 personal best times and all of his swims qualifying him for this year’s Carifta. We are very proud of Philip for this performance and I know he is looking forward to being a part of this year’s Carifta team.
Harbour Head Coach and National Coach Richard Goodwin reported 10 year old Emma Harvey was the star swimmers for Harbour Club at the first of the Best of the BEST series meet on Saturday, March 3rd, as she smashed two age group records with some superb swims.
Her first was in the 100 IM as she lowered the previous record by over 2 seconds to 1:20.55, whilst her second was in the 200 back, knocking almost 9 seconds off of the previous record. She then anchored the girls 9 and 10 relay in the 4 x 100 freestyle, along with teammates Ashley Irby, Lizzie Thresh and Alyssa Paynter, to establish an age group record.
Other 4 x 100 freestyle age group relay records were also established by the following Harbour Relay teams:
- 8 and under boys: Nick Pilgrim, Finn Moseley, Jack Thorpe and Jack Harvey
- 9 and 10 boys: Jude Moseley, Myles Packwood, Yannick Hillier and Alex Pilgrim
As National Coach Richard joined Ben Smith in noting Philip Hagen had the best possible meet as he swam to 3 AA times in the 50, 100 and 400 freestyle events and placing himself as solidly eligible for selection for the CARIFTA team traveling next month to the Bahamas. Two other swimmers also had good swims, by meeting the A standard and receiving an invitation to join the National Team – Jessie Thomas and Aaron Rego.
The Dolphin swimmers performed very well establishing 75 personal bests out of 91 individual swims. Coaches Barry Hanson and Elise Cooper were very proud of all their swimmers. There were some exciting races such as the 200 I’m between Alexander MacCallum and Peter Dill. As usual, lots of talent in the pool.
Keep up the good work . Stories like this reinforces the truth that there are far more positive youths on this Island then there are idle ones .
I love it when are children are perfoming well in their respective sports .
Well done and congratulations to the Parents for doing a fantastic job of keeping your child engaged .