Lincoln Vulcans swimmers travelled to Corby on the 7th and 8th November to compete in the Winter Midlands (25m) Championships. Other teams present included a strong Loughborough University contingent together with Council-backed Performance clubs Nova Centurion (Nottinghamshire) Derventio (Derbyshire), City of Leicester, Northampton and City of Birmingham as well as numerous other clubs from within the Midlands region. Categories were Junior (15 and Under) and Open (all ages).
Vulcans’ swimmers delighted Head Coach Fred Furniss with a total of 23 medal winning performances overall including the Open Men’s 1500m Freestyle title won by Will Jolly in 15.32.80 and the Junior Girls 1500m freestyle title won by Grace Conlon (14) on day one of the competition. Grace also took the Open Silver position with her swim of 17.31.40
The highlight of day two was without doubt the 800m freestyle race where Vulcans male swimmers totally dominated the field in the 800m event taking the top three spots. Jack Burnell (16) broke the East Midlands Regional Record previously held by Daniel Mills of Nova Centurion by 7 seconds with a time of 8.03.70, followed by teammates Will Jolly – 8.18.29 silver (18) and Oliver Bitowt 8.23.11(14) bronze. In doing so Oliver added the Junior gold title to his Open bronze.
Oliver Bitowt swam an impressive series of races, not satisfied with breaking 2 of his own County records in the 400 free and 200 IM free he took the 100 Individual medley record and also set a new 400m Individual Medley record of 4.41.90, beating the current record set by Lincolnshire’s Olympic swimmer Paul Palmer 20 years ago when he was aged 14 by 4 seconds. Ollie’s medal tally stood at 5 Golds 2 Silvers and a Bronze, having reached 3 Open finals.
Hayley Williams was on good sprinting form claiming 5 medals, reaching two Open finals and winning Junior Gold in the 50 and 100 Breastroke. She added the Open 50m Breastroke silver and Junior Silvers in the 50 free and 100 Individual Medley
Mollie Temple produced two excellent swims in the 200 and 400 Individual medleys bringing home a Junior silver medal in each swimming in the Open finals.
Olly Richmond took silver in the Junior 100 IM and 200 Backstroke with a new PB time and also posted a new PB in his 200 freestyle and 100 IM.
Alex Manley continued to demonstrate his Breastroke skills in earning a place in both the 50 and 100m Open Breastroke finals with strong swims.
Other swimmers who posted personal best times included James Fountain (200 freestyle) Charles Bitowt (100 IM), Oliver Roberts (50m freestyle), Jack Wright (200 freestyle and 200 backstroke), Alison Haworth (200 IM, 200 Freestyle, 100 freestyle) and Sophie Lynn (100 fly) while teamates Sarah Fountain, brothers Lewis and Fraser Farren, Lauren Freeman and Sean Westerman all produced solid performances for so early in the racing season.
To round the weekend off Vulcans lads Jack Burnell and Oliver Bitowt were presented with awards for the Best Overall Individual male swims of the meet for their 800m freestyle swims in the Open and Junior categories having gained more FINA points for their performances in the 800 freestyle than any other Open or Junior male swimmer in the entire meet in any other event.
Head Coach Fred Furniss commented:
‘This was a very pleasing weekend for three reasons:
1 Our concentration levels and focus were spot on during a very long meet.
2 The swimmers stepped up to mark against quality opposition (the best it has been for 5 years) when asked to do so
3 These performances were achieved in the middle of hard training – the swimmers were not rested for this meet.
These short course performances have now set the level to be beaten at the forthcoming Counties in February and March 2010.’
