SWIMMING — Success For Inverclyde ASC Juniors At West District Meet
Luke Garrity
IT was the turn of the Inverclyde Amateur Swimming Club (IASC) junior swimmers to take to the pool at the weekend in the West District Junior Age Group meet.
Like the recent seniors event, the competition was held in Tollcross International Swimming Centre in Glasgow. The contest was open to swimmers aged 11 to 13 who have achieved the tough qualifying times.
Motivated by the success of their senior clubmates, seven swimmers competed for IASC over the two days, and they did themselves and the club proud. Every swimmer achieved a new personal best time and made the finals in at least one of their events.
Coach Andrew Hemphill said: “In a busy period of competitions, it’s really difficult to keep achieving personal bests in such a short space of time, but our swimmers managed this again at the West District event.
It was also great to see so many swimmers challenging themselves by swimming in events other than they are used to –- both different strokes and different distances -– especially at such a high level of competition.”
There were three girls in action for IASC, all of whom had a very successful meet. Lucy Campbell came 10th and 12th in the 800-metre freestyle and 200-metre breaststroke finals respectively, achieving great new personal bests in each event.
April Craynor came 8th in the 100-metre butterfly final and got new best times in the breaststroke, backstroke and freestyle 100-metre events.
Betty Fischer-Keogh, the club’s youngest girl competing, swam her fastest time to date to come 7th in the 100-metre freestyle and also placed 10th in the 100-metre breaststroke.
For the boys, Alistair Currie came 11th in the 200-metre freestyle final and Peter Maloney came 6th in the 200-metre backstroke with both boys achieving faster times than previously.
Jay Keith, was equally impressive, coming 5th in the 200-metre butterfly and 8th in the 400-metre individual medley finals. He narrowly missed out on a finals place for the 100-metre backstroke, but still recorded huge personal bests in all three events.
From, Peter Maloney, Luke Garrity and Alistair-Currie
The standout performance of the weekend undoubtedly came from 11-year old Luke Garrity. The Moorfoot Primary pupil swam in seven events, making the finals and achieving new best times in all but one.
Luke achieved a 10th place in the 200-metre backstroke, 5th place in the 200-metre individual medley and 4th place in the 400-metre freestyle. As a fitting reward, Luke took home a bronze medal in the 400-metre individual medley and two silver medals for the 100-metre and 200-metre breaststroke.
Club coach Kyara Finlay said: “It was a fantastic weekend of swimming with brilliant results against some of the toughest competition in the district.”
The swimmers’ attention now turns to the annual IASC club championships at the Waterfront, Greenock in mid-December.
