Busy end to season for local swimmers

Many started the day at the Ards Junior Open gala and for seven of the 12 swimmers taking part this was their first open gala.

The morning session for 9yrs & under saw four swimmers represent the club all for the first time in an open event, Scarlet Armstrong , Rachel Brown, Euan McHenry and Hannah Reid. Scarlet (6yrs) Hannah (7yrs) and Euan swam backcrawl and freestyle and all achieved PB’s in both events. Rachel swam all four strokes and achieved 4 PBs.

The afternoon session saw two of our now seasoned open swimmers at only 10 years represent the club – Cai Armstrong and Ryan Lewis. Both again achieved PB’s and were joined in the freestyle relay by Scarlet Armstrong and Rachel Brown who swam up to this age group and did exceptional to keep the relay in a competitive position.

These two groups both went on to represent the Club in the last of the teletot league swims against Alliance later that day.

The final session saw the 11yr olds take to the water and 3 of the boys swam in their first open gala, Robbie Anderson, Jack Higgins and Matthew Robinson along side the now well experienced 3 girls, Suzannah Brown, Oonagh O’Neill and Rachel Reid. Oonagh finished with 1st in Breast, 2nd Butterfly and 4th in Freestlye, Rachel 5th in Butterfly and Suzannah and Jack made reserve finalists and were rewarded with some good PBs.

This group took part in the Freestyle & Medley relays and swam outstandingly to finish 4th in both, a great achievement especially for the boys Jack, Matthew and Robbie.

On the evening of Saturday 22nd, Ballymena swimming club’s Teletots team finished their league campaign with a victory over Alliance swimmers in Belfast and secured a place in the league play off. The young Ballymena swimmers secured a 220 v 180 points win, and now progress to the league play off against Coleraine and Dungannon swimming clubs.

The girls and boys recorded 19 and 18 Personal Best times respectively. C-Group swimmer, Rachel McBride and A-Group’s Rob Lawrence recorded 4 PBs in backstroke, breastroke, butterfly and freestyle.

Several swimmers recorded more than 1 PB each- Samantha Agnew, Erin Barr, Amy Barr, Rachel Brown, Kirsty McHenry, Finn Berrisford, Padhraig Magill, and Robert Adair.

On Saturday 29th May the club were busy again but this time it was in the form of bag packing at the Local Sainsbury’s store to raise some much needed funds for the club.

The club would like to thank Sainsbury’s for giving them the opportunity to raise some funds and also to the public who gave generously and allowed the club to raise a substantial 491.17. Thanks to all involved.