Staffordshire County Championships 2020

MASTERS 2020

A few short weeks after the kids came home with plenty of PB times, final places and medals etc the same venue was used for the Masters Competition. The meet doubles up as an open for all who wish to participate and the staffs county masters for just the staffs clubs swimmers. Swimmers are put in age bands – they can tell you which ones they swam in !!!

Paige Colling – JOINT STAR SWIMMER   for masters 2020 – 3 gold medals and a silver medal on the county master stage

Callan Dawson – Two gold medals, two silver medals and a bronze

Jenny Cooke – JOINT STAR SWIMMER   for masters 2020 – 4 gold medals for Jenny at county level

Ian Gates – 2 silvers and 2 bronze for the joint head coach

Simon Ward – 1 gold, 2 silver and 2 bronze for the other joint coach

Well Done to all 5 of them!!!!

RELAYS AND SKINS 2020

The next day was scheduled for Skins and Relays. The club had for both the last two years seen swimmers make Skins and therefore planned ahead in terms of entering relay teams so that any swimmer qualifying for SKINS would have team mates present on the day.

George Greener – current Men’s senior captain – became the first swimmer to qualify for SKINS for a second time – you qualify by coming in the top 8 in the open age of 200m IM in the championships. SKINS are where a chosen stroke provides a race for all 8 over 50m – the slowest is then eliminated – you carry on with randomly selected strokes until a final race off for the last 2 swimmers decides who is the champion. In addition to George we had 3 swimmers as reserves as well in Matt Gates. Jack Ward and Katie Spooner.

In terms of relay teams we entered 3 age group teams with both doing Free and Medley relays.

SKINS

George was up against 7 swimmers with either National or Regional experience – when back stroke came out first we could see him wince a little – but he smashed his PB to stay in the mix – George came 7^th in the end and did so well with the big boys in SKINs 2020.

RELAYS

Up to 15 different clubs had teams in the different age groups – their were heats and then all clubs ranked under the Heat Declared Winner method.

Age 13

The team was Bella Smith, Jaina Muogbo, Georgia Ulyett, Charlie Miller and Issy Mills

In the Medley relay there was 11 teams and the girls came 5^th with some great swims including a huge PB on 50 free for Issy Mills.

In the Free relay again there were 11 teams and the girls once again came 5^th.

Junior Championships – age 16

The team was Ella Cooper, Katie Spooner, Charlotte Breeze and Sophie Fowkes

STAR RACE – Every now and then something happens that surpasses all hope before an event starts – the girls came 4^th in the heats out of 12 teams to go into the Junior Free Relay in a middle lane – the team then came 3^rd to win the Bronze Medal in the Junior Championship. They became the first ever BASC girls team to go sub 2 minutes for the 200m event – and proudly stood on the podium as a quartet to take the medal home!!!! All girls sneaked under 30m seconds during the two rounds and swam for each other like never before.

In the Medley relays they again made it into the Junior Final in 4^th place, and came 5^th in the final with some great swims including PB times in fly for Katie Spooner , Breast for Ella Cooper and back for current senior captain Sophie Fowkes

Senior Championships

The team was Matt Gates, Adam Doughty, Finley Brown and Jack Ward

Like the junior girls we knew we had a good team on show…..

Medley Relay – the boys came 6^th in the heats out of 11 teams and maintained that placing to come 6^th in the final

Free Relay – the blue ribbon event – the boys qualified an amazing 5^th into the final and then again maintained the seeding to come 5^th in the final event.

Huge thank you to Craig Day and Bev Doughty for officiating.