City of Glasgow Open Meet - 1-2 May 2010

Donnie and Eddie Price, swimming for South Mainland Amateur Swimming Club competed at the City of Glasgow Open Meet last weekend at Tollcross Pool, Glasgow.

Returning to this venue only three weeks after his successes at the Scottish Age Groups, Donnie, 13, did remarkably well to improve on his times in the 7 events swum then and also broke best times in a further 2 races. In the shorter 100metre distances tiny fractions of a second were chipped off his previous best times in freestyle and butterfly, his breaststroke just under a second, and 1.3 seconds in his backstroke. In the 200 metres backstroke, a race that he hadn’t swum since February, he gained a 7 second Pb, while in the 200m breaststroke he was thrilled to improve his time by 5 seconds for a 2.54.26 and, as the fastest 13year old, finish in 4th place in the 13/14 year age group. In the mid distance 400m freestyle, he dropped his time by 3 seconds and again came top amongst the 13year olds with 7th place.

Becoming recognised as a very good distance swimmer, Donnie had his best result of the weekend in the 1500m freestyle. Seeded in the first heat, while some lads started off at a fast pace, Donnie started at a slightly slower pace but by 300metres had settled in to a rate that he was able to maintain. He started overtaking then increasing his distance ahead of the all the other competitors and by the final third of the race he was well in front. Touching first in the heat, in 17.55.19, he had knocked an incredible 13 seconds off his 3 week old previous best time, and had achieved his target of gaining a Scottish National Open time. This was also his highest placed event, winning bronze behind two14year olds.

For younger brother Eddie, 11, the competition was only the second occasion competing in a 50metre pool, having only swum a single length race at the Scottish Schools. This meant that each of his 9 races would be a long course personal best. He set out to match or improve all his entry times, which were conversions of short course times.

He achieved his aim in all but 2 races, but in one of these, the 200m breaststroke, his time of 3.22.47 was still extremely good and, like big brother Donnie, he came 4th – and the fastest 11 year old in the 9-12 year age group. Eddie coped excellently with the challenge of long course butterfly by slicing a huge 6 seconds off his time for a 1.26.76 to come 8th. Another challenge was racing the 800m freestyle, having only ever raced this distance once before, but again he went well under his time by 15 seconds to finish 9th in a time of 10.56.18. In his last race of the weekend he had another brilliant freestyle race in the 400m where he smashed his entry time by 10seconds to round off a most successful long course meet.