Banbridge swimmers put their names in the frame for southern region team

Some of the Banbridge team who competed in the Southern Regional PTL Trials in Newry.

Many of them swam to personal best times at the recent Southern Region Provincial Towns League (PTL) swim trials held in Newry.

With only the top three swimmers in each age group set to qualify in each event, there was plenty of competition as everyone sought to represent the region in the annual North verses South Provincial Towns League Finals which are to be held in Ballymoney later in the season.

Bann joined teams from Portadown, Armagh, Enniskillen, Newry and Mourne and Dungannon to battle for places in the back crawl, breast stroke, butterfly, front crawl and Individual Medley events.

Ronan takes flight approaching the wall of his butterfly to back crawl turn.

Banbridge Coaches Lee Galloway, Fiona Cleland and Pat Dougan saw personal bests times achieved by many of their swimmers.

Those included Erin Smith, Aoife Cleland, Aidin and Ronan Quinn, James Neill, Thomas Nixon, Patrick and Jodi Doyle, Jack Lennon, Katie McFarland, Dia McCory, Harry and Jack Dougan, Isaac Forsythe, Tom King, Lawson Morrow, Carter Bell and Sarah McAvoy.

Coach Pat Dougan was delighted with the efforts of all of his squad: “The new aquatic facilities at Newry were a superb location for this event. It was great to see the young athletes power off the starting blocks.

“We were delighted with our squad – everyone has improved on their entry times; they clearly demonstrated that their hard efforts in training with a focus on streamlined underwater work have really paid off.”

Eight year old Katies breast stroke has a powerful whip kick.

The young Banbridge swimmers will find out in the coming weeks if their times have qualified them to represent the Southern region, so until then its caps on and goggles down for some fast training to prepare for the next Ulster Age Groups competition in Bangor over the weekend 8-10 April.