Sunday 18 October – the annual National Inter County Championships took place this weekend at Ponds Forge in Sheffield.
The Championships consist of two fully independent galas run simultaneously in 2 x 25 metre pools created by splitting the 50m International pool at Ponds Forge in half by a boom. With two complete sets of Technical Officials, 6 referees and two sets of announcers, starting equipment and electronic timing, the gala itself is a spectacle to behold from a sheer organisational point of view.
Teams representing 39 counties in Great Britain converged on Sheffield to battle it out in an extraordinary competition. The Counties are divided into two divisions – the first division with 20 teams runs in the south pool and the second with 19 teams and runs in the north pool. The top 4 teams in Division 2 take a place in the following year’s Division 1 group while the bottom 4 teams of Division 1 swap to take places in Division 2.
Lincolnshire traditionally competes in Division 2 taking 12th place in 2008.
This year the 27 strong Lincolnshire team selection was taken from the County rankings – based on recent swims and included 14 swimmers from Lincoln Vulcans 3 from Louth, 1 from Grantham, 2 from Deepings, 1 from Trenton Doplphins, 2 from City of Lincoln Pentaqua, 2 from Boston and 2 from South Lincs. 15 of the swimmers achieved their County colours for representation in 2009.
This unique swimming event includes both individual and team events and in the case of the Lincolnshire squad often combines swimmers who never normally train together into relay teams.
Lincolnshire’s performance this year showed a great improvement over the 2008 display with first place performances from Sophie Allen in the 100 breaststroke and 100 butterfly and also for the boys’ 12/13 medley relay team. The team drawn from 4 different Lincolnshire clubs included Marcus Cook (Deepings) Callum Mitchell (Louth), Liam Noonan (City of Lincoln Pentaqua) and Lincoln Vulcans who all produced a strong display in a very competitive race – snatching the first position from Hampshire by five tenths of a second.
In the individual races Deepings’ Marcus Cook took 3rd place in the 100m Backstroke and 4th place in the 100 freestyle. Chloe Hannam of South Lincs also followed with a 4th placing in the girls 100m freestyle. Vulcan’s Jack Burnell swam a superb 53.25 in the 100 freestyle taking 5th place in the 16/17 Age group.
An equally strong and exciting race was the 14/15 boys medley relay with Vulcan brothers Charlie and Ollie Bitowt joined by club mate Olly Richmond and Patrick Ikhena from Boston. The near tsunami experience for the Technical officials was certainly a sight to behold as the boys swam with unbridled power and determination taking 5th place in a race in which the first 5 places were separated by just over a second.
Team Managers Sarah Richardson and Stewart Fountain were delighted with the performance from the swimmers.
‘The event had a fantastic carnival atmosphere and Lincolnshire can be proud of their performance this year. To move from 12th to 7th position is a great achievement’ said Fountain.
Richardson, who is also senior team manager at Louth Dolphins Swimming Club agreed
This is a really great event and it was brilliant to see our swimmers responding so positively to the atmosphere and uniting around the county flag. The whole team swam their hardest for Lincolnshire.
Buoyed by the success of the Lincolnshire team in this year’s event, the County ASA will now be considering how to provide more opportunities for Lincolnshire’s best swimmers to train more regularly together. Moves are already underway to organize a number of days where coaches and swimmers can meet to share ideas and best practice whilst also allowing swimmers the chance to meet and bond with those from other parts of the County.
County ASA President, Guy Dix of Boston Swimming Club welcomed the development:
The success of our county swimmers in making such a significant improvement in this years Inter Counties Championships, has pleased everyone involved in competitive swimming in Lincolnshire. However, we must now make every effort to build upon this success and create more opportunities for the Lincolnshire team to train and compete together. The new ideas being developed will be aimed at achieving this and we look forward to seeing the results at next year’s event.
