Hastings Seagull Swimming Club WIN Speedo
We Won – On the best evening of swimming for some time Hastings Seagull swimmers went to the Black Lion complex in Gillingham and beat the other five clubs in this Speedo League Final. Not only did they beat the other clubs on the night but they had gone into this final in joint third place and with a truly amazing performance they jumped up to first place and won their Speedo Division. The team and their supporters could not believe it when the result was announced that we had beaten Atlantis of Horsham by one point to be the Champions. It was a great team performance and this is best shown by the fact that in 38 of the 50 events our swimmers produced better times than they had in the first two rounds. These included 15 PBs, 20 County QTs, 13 Regional QTs and 1 National QT, we came First in 16 events and Second in 10 events. The final points totals on the night were Hastings 214, Atlantis of Horsham 198, Southend 186, Maidstone 166, Redhill & Reigate 149 and Braintree 129. The final score in the League table was Hastings 23 – First, Atlantis of Horsham 22 – Second and Southend 19 – Third. Tom Parris of Bexhill won four individual events of particular note was his 100m Open Freestyle in 52.63secs which was the third time he had been sub 53secs in the last few weeks. Other individual winners were Hannah Keen 2, Sarah Penney of Beckley 2, and Tom Creed, Emily Hunt, Tom Heskett, Nathan Thomas won one event each. Nathan Thomas and Alex Berwick called themselves the Hobbits when they swam and came second to a giant from Horsham but they both got PBs and Regional QTs in doing so. Another performance of note was done by 11 year old Chloe Benton who swam up an Age Group against 13 year olds came fourth but swam a Regional QT. But it was the overall team performance which gave us the victory, a typical example of this was Jack Turner who swam in two events and swam 2 second PBs in both, the times which he had set the previous week at Guildford. I have no doubt that the Pennant we won on Saturday will be shown with pride next Saturday at our Presentation night at the Rugby Club.