Scottish National Age Group Championships, Royal Commonwealth Pool, Edinburgh - April 2009

At the Scottish National Age Group Championships held at Edinburgh’s Royal Commonwealth Pool, Donnie Price,12, became the first swimmer from South Mainland Amateur Swimming Club to win an Age Group Scottish National Champion title, which he achieved in the 10-12 year boys 1500m freestyle.

Swimmers representing 29 English and 32 Scottish swim clubs competed over 5 days at this top level competition. Competing for his first time in a National championship, Donnie had qualified for 10 events. He produced good personal best times in the 200m breaststroke, long course bests in the 200m backstroke and 200m individual medley and was on his entry time for the 100m breaststroke. Only his 100m backstroke was a little off his entry time. However it was in the 5 freestyle races that Donnie, without doubt, performed his best, breaking his Shetland Age Group records.

On the first day of competition, in the 200m freestyle heats, Donnie improved by 1.5 seconds on his previous long course time which was enough to qualify for the evening’s final. An excellent race resulted in taking over 1 second off his heat time to finish in 2.18.91, 7th place and 4th out of the Scottish boys, just behind 12year old Sandy Waller from Heart of Midlothian. Having met Sandy last year when the Hearts club visited Shetland for a training weekend, Sandy and Donnie now met in race after race. On the Thursday in the 800m freestyle, Donnie was a fraction ahead of Sandy until the last turn and in the final 50m was pushed all the way with Sandy just touching 1 second ahead to take 3rd place to Donnie’s 4th.

A virtual repeat performance took place on Friday during the 400m freestyle when again the two boys kept pace with one another throughout the 8 length race, with once more Sandy just beating Donnie by a mere fingernail, 0.12 seconds ahead. The result was a 5th place for Donnie. Then on Saturday, for the fourth day in a row the boys lined up in lanes 1 and 2, with 12year old Dale McAnish from Grangemouth in lane 3. With similar entry times and having witnessed the earlier freestyle events, again an exciting race was expected. The youngsters did not disappoint. For the first 400m all three could not be separated, but over the next 400m Donnie inched slightly in front of Sandy and a couple of body lengths ahead of Dale. Donnie worked hard, maintained excellent pace and increased his lead a fraction of a second each length. At the final 100m both boys gave it their utmost, but the lead Donnie had built up was just enough to give him a clear 3 seconds over Sandy and a superb long course time of 18.53.22. At this stage of the event Donnie was the fastest 10-12 year boy, but in the following heat Thomas Gregson, all the way from Portsmouth, produced an outstanding swim to take 1st overall place. As Thomas is English, it was then Donnie, in addition to getting silver medal for 2nd place, as the top Scot was awarded a Scottish National Age Group Champion medal.

On the last day, the 100m freestyle heats brought an unanticipated challenge, when as the race started, the starting flash light for a deaf swimmer failed and the false start rope was dropped as the rest of the swimmers hit the water. Unfortunately Donnie swam hard into the rope giving himself a painful red rope burn. In the few minutes that it took to re-start the race, Donnie started to shiver and was disappointed in his heat time. Fortunately it was still fast enough to qualify for the final. In the final of an exciting 100m freestyle Donnie just lost out on the bronze medal by half a second.

Altogether, this five day event was a tremendous experience. Both Donnie and Mum/coach Jan gained a lot of valuable knowledge from the competition which included having the opportunity to chat with swimmers and coaches from bigger clubs.

One of the main differences to other events is that morning session warms ups are earlier – 7am and last for up to an hour and a half, so swimmers can choose when they want to warm up and for how long. Donnie found that he benefitted from the extra long warm up. There is no segregation of sexes or clubs, and depending on what events are being swum in a session, it can be a very busy pool. Another facility at top level competitions is having the use of an extra pool – at the RCP it was the diving pool to swim down after a race.There were also tighter controls on access to changing rooms and poolside – no-one being allowed in these areas without an official pass. Spectators were only allowed in designated areas in the seating area, and swimmers were only allowed to spectator area once in dry & dressed in non swimwear.

Then and now

Jan had swum at the Royal Commonwealth Pool at same event 35 years ago, but there were far fewer swimmers back then and the whole competition lasted only 2 days. Swimmers started at the shallow end – yes back in the olden days, diving into less than 1m was allowed!