Solihull Friendly Gala Report

A big thanks to Ian for leading the team to a solid 2nd place, just a few points off first! Take a few minutes to read through his report below.

Orion finished a solid 2^nd place at Saturday’s friendly gala hosted at Solihull and only 5 points off first.

In total we had 19 1^st places, 14 2^nd places, 10 3^rd places, 8 4^th places and 1 5^th place. We also had no DQ’s in this gala, however there was some leniency.

We were a bit short on 11 boys and girls and 12 year old girls for this gala so thank you to all those swimmers who filled in by swimming up, in particular Niamh, Maya, Daniel, Stefan and JoeD.

The 9 year old girls showed their strength by winning both of their relays as did the 10 year old girls.

The most outstanding swim of the night must go to Althaf Bukhari swimming a 35.50 for 50m Fly and receiving a round of applause from the audience. Althaf also claims the club record for this event which has stood since 2002.

The top boy of the night must go to Althaf Bukhari for his 50m Fly and the top girl to Niamh Bevan for outstanding swims throughout, in particular in Event 1 where Niamh showed her streamlined fly kick speed coming up at half way a few meters ahead of the opposition.

Throughout the gala it was clear that shallow end relay takeover practice is needed, whilst we will continue to work on this in training it is critical swimmers understand the following:

·         When you are the swimmer performing the shallow end finish keep low and don’t jump up otherwise you will block the diving swimmer.

·         When you are the swimmer performing the shallow end dive position yourself in the center of the lane. You will be diving over the swimmer and not round them. Finally ensure you dive in and not fall in!

This gala has set the expectations to perform well for this year’s Junior League. It is however critical that we have the strongest team possible in order to fully compete against the other clubs. Another reminder of these crucial dates: 5^th April, 10^th May, 28^th June, 13^th September.

I must also apologize to Zakariya Ahmad for missing him off the Teamer invites and hence the gala.

Thanks to all the Orion officials which were Pippa Sibbald-Perkins, Ganga Gurung, Aaarti Jain and David Smith.

Special thanks to Clara Day for her invaluable poolside help.

Ian