Tigersharks Silver Lining

Tigersharks took a small contingent of eight swimmers to the Welsh National Pool in Swansea this weekend. With only one more qualifying competition left before this years National Competitions the young sharks were trying to knock off the vital half seconds required to book their place at Sheffield .

Sixteen Year Old Hayley Wood thrilled her team mates with an astonishing swim when she blasted her way through the field in the 800m Frontcrawl to take the Gold medal and easily claim her second National Qualifying time with a PB swim of 9:23 . Her swim put her a massive six seconds inside the time required for a sixteen year old. Stacey Wood narrowly missed out on her second NQT in the 100m Butterfly but claimed another Gold medal for the sharks.

Rosemary Broad, who only turned 11 last month, left the other swimmers in her age group in no doubt who was going to take gold in the 800 Frontcrawl. Rosemary led the other 11 year olds from start to finish taking another 23 seconds off her PB to take first place. Broad also amazed her coach when she made the finals in the 100, 200 and 400 Frontcrawl producing PB's in all of her races in both the heats and final taking the silver medal in three events.

Aaron Lee and Dean Williamson are both already National Qualifiers with two events each. Both Boys produced great swims, Lee taking gold in the 200 Backstroke and silver in the 100 Backstroke and 100 Butterfly. Williamson claimed silver in the 200 Frontcrawl, 400 Frontcrawl and 200 IM events. Both boys produced PB times in all of their swims.

Natalie Montezuma (13) came agonisingly close to her first NQT in the 50m Frontcrawl when she swam to time of 29.48 just .20 of a second outside the time required. Natalie went on to produce PB times in the 100 and 200 Backstroke, 100 Breaststroke and 200m IM claiming a silver and two bronze medals. Hayley Towner and Siobhan Tierney (12) both produced some great swimming. Hayley made the finals of the 200 and 400 IM and 200 Butterfly. Siobhan also made the finals of all of the events she entered producing her best swims in the finals of the 200 Backstroke and 200 Butterfly where she lowered her heat time by 13 seconds to take the silver medal.

Sophie Hawkins has been threatening to claim her first NQT for a month now and was placed well this weekend. Sophie who has only been swimming for two years has improved dramatically since joining Tigersharks 18 months ago. In the 400 Frontcrawl she took the silver but some way off her National time. However in the 200 Frontcrawl she produced a great swim to miss her NQT by just 1.17 seconds and in the 100 Frontcrawl Sophie was again denied her time when she missed the time by 0.43 of a second. There was some consolation in three silver medals.

Together the eight sharks claimed 4 gold, 14 silver and 2 bronze medals. A massive haul for a few swimmers.