Buckie Age Group Championships – April 2008

Last weekend 7 young swimmers from South Mainland Swimming Club (SMASC) traveled south to attend the Buckie Age Group Championships. The day before the competition the swimmers were delighted to be shown around RAF Lossiemouth by Flight Officer George Thompson and had a close up view of some Nimrods.

On Saturday first in the pool was Donnie Price in the 200m individual medley open event. He swam well against the older competitors, taking 1s off his personal best time (PB). In the 10-11yr age group, Donnie swept the board with 4 gold medals for 100m freestyle, butterfly, backstroke (1.21.51& a 3s PB) & breaststroke. In the 200m freestyle open event, Donnie was the only 11yr old to qualify and was competing against others up to 21yrs old. He had a great swim & took 2s off his personal best time (PB) 2.24.90 to come 18th out of 30.

Also competing for the boys in this age group were Darin Eldridge (11), Jason Riise (11) and James Morris (10). Darin produced a brilliant 4s PB in 100m freestyle (01.13.60) to come 4th, had a super swim in butterfly, narrowly missing bronze medal by 0.3s (1.34.86 & a 2.5s PB), 4th in backstroke with a great 3s PB (01.26.95) and came 5th in breaststroke.

Jason swam well in his 3 races to give him new PBs. He took an excellent 3s off both 100m backstroke (1.39.81) & breaststroke (1.41.39 & 6th place) and 0.5s off in freestyle.

SMASCs youngest competitor at the meet was James Morris, who took a super 2s off his PB in 100m freestyle to come 12th (3rd fastest 10year old) and had good swims in backstroke and breaststroke.

For the 10-11yr old girls, Sarah Keay (11) produced some consistent swims coming 5th in 100m freestyle, 6th in 100m breaststroke and 8th in both backstroke and butterfly.

Karl Eldridge & Bethany Byrne-McCombie both competed in the 12-13yr age group. Karl (12) had a great swim in 100m freestyle, taking almost 2s off his PB (1.14.70). In backstroke he produce another excellent PB (1.25.99), taking almost 4s off his previous time. Karl also swam well in 100m butterfly and breaststroke.

For the girls, Bethany (12) had a superb meet smashing her PBs in all 3 events. She took 4s off in 100m breaststroke (1.33.27), 4s off in 100m backstroke (1.20.82) and a fantastic 7s off in butterfly (1.28.20). The swimmers would like to thank the coaches & adults who travelled with them.