Scottish National Short Course Championships, 15-18 December 2011, Inverness

Representing South Mainland ASC, Donnie Price, 15, competed in twelve events and managed to achieve eight PBs and four top ten places. Having spent the customary 20 hour journey from Shetland to Inverness, Donnie hit the water early Thursday evening for the Men’s 1500m freestyle. In a superbly paced swim he demolished his previous best time with a 27 second improvement for a 16.41.57 and finished in 9^th place.

The following day, in the 200m freestyle Donnie hit his target and broke the 2 minutes for the first time with 1.59.87. He then equalled his PB in the 200m backstroke and ended the session with a further PB in the 100m breaststroke with a 1.11.69.

In Friday afternoon’s session Donnie had an extremely good swim in the Boys 15 and under 400m freestyle, and smashed his entry time by six seconds to finish in 6^th place with 4.13.88. Following this, he achieved another good PB in the 400m IM.

Saturday morning started with being on his PB in the 200m butterfly. Then in the Men’s 200m Breaststroke he once more broke a PB with a 2.33.58 finishing well up the field in 19^th place out of 50. In the afternoon session, he gained 8^th place in the Boys’ 1500m freestyle.

On the final day of the championships, Donnie continued to produce PBs. Having only been seeded as reserve in the 200m IM, a 4 second improvement in his entry time resulted in a 2.15.82, moving him up from 46^th to 31^st position.  He then equalled his time for the 100m backstroke and finished off with a final PB of 1.04.12 and 10^th place in the 100m IM.

Scottish National Short Course Championships - 7-9 January 2011

A first timer at the championships was Donnie Price representing South Mainland ASC. The 14 year old swam eight races, including all four age group events for 15 and under boys plus four of the Men’s open events. His opening race of the meet was the Men’s 100m butterfly, where as only a reserve had been lucky to have the opportunity to swim and finished within a second of his entry time. The afternoon started off with the Boys’ 400m freestyle and Donnie made his first Pb of 2011.

Day two started with a good swim in the Men’s 100m breaststroke where he finished within a fraction of a second of his Pb. The afternoon’s event was the Boys’1500m freestyle, which he swam at a very steady pace throughout and finished in a Pb time of 17.21.33 and overall 13th position.

On the final day of the competition, Donnie produced his best swims. Once more having only qualified as reserve, he was seeded in the first heat of the Men’s 200m freestyle. At the 100m turn he had gone under the minute and doing his best to hold on to the pace during the second half of the race, finished with a 2 second Pb in a time of 2.05.35. Later he produced another Pb in the Men’s 200m breaststroke with a 2.44.24.

In the last of his races, the Boys’ 400m IM, Donnie produced his biggest Pb of the three days. Showing improvement in all 4 strokes but especially his fly and backstroke, and with an excellent final 50m sprint he finished with a huge 12 second Pb time of 5.05.03.