A fabulous evening celebrating all our achievements throughout the season! Lots of awards and club records handed out.
By the time that you are reading this, we will be well into 2020 and I hope that your year has begun on a good note.
Looking out of the window, it seems that 2020 seems to have picked up where 2019 left off, with plenty of rain and puddles. But, as we’ve written before, a bit of inclement weather doesn’t dampen the spirits at Cranleigh Swimming Club.
The Christmas period and January offer a lull in the swimming open meet calendar. With the window for achieving county qualifying times shut, clubs focus on training.
Our swimmers are well into their preparations for the second half of the swimming season. For those that qualified, that means intense training for the Surrey County Championships. This three-weekend event starts at the end of January and runs until the beginning of March. There are plenty of training sets and workouts that can be squeezed into that window. The aim: to ensure those swimmers are in peak condition to maximise their potential.
For those who didn’t qualify for the County Championships this year, they’re part of the same team. So that means the same training sets and the same hard work as their friends. Their goal is to be ready to make the most of the busy spring period of competitions. For some, to compete in their first galas, for others to set new personal bests.
Out of the pool, the club held their mid-season awards evening in early January. The purpose of this evening is to to get together as a club and celebrate the achievements of our swimmers. For many sports, it is hard to isolate individuals, so coaches reward subjectively. In swimming, all performances are measured at an individual level. This means that swimmers gain awards based on objective measures.
On the evening, awards were split into 3 categories. The first was attendance. Young people have a huge variety of activities on offer, so we believe it is right to recognise the big time commitment that swimming requires. Like so many sports, performance is strongly correlated with practice. The club chooses to reward those swimmers in each squad who attend the highest percentage of training sessions. The awards this time went to Lev Onischenko (Intro 1), Annabella Murenu (Intro 1+), Issy Avery (Intro 2), Paige Howells-Davies (Development), Lana Howells-Davies (Intermediate) and Juliette Small (Seniors).
The second category of awards went to those swimmers who have set new club records. The records for each age group and stroke can be seen in the display cabinet by the spectator gallery in the Leisure Centre. Some of the records have been in existence for some time. The swimmers breaking club records between August and December were: Connie Emmett (5 records), Sophie Moore (2), Martha Horstead (1) and Thomas Craig (1).
The final category of awards went to the best performing swimmers in our Club Championships. Points were awarded for first, second and third places across the 4 weekends of Club Championships this year. These points were then aggregated and the male and female swimmer in each age group won the award. The winners were: Issy Avery and Vincent Small (8-year-old girl and boy); Paige Howells-Davies and Dylan Cambridge (9-year-olds); Connie Emmett and Will O’Brien (10-year-olds); Lana Howells-Davies and Callum Stevens (11-year-olds); Ellen Shayler and Tadhg Martin (12-year-olds); Holly Stevenson and Chris King (13-year-olds); Sophie Moore and Thomas Craig (14-year-olds); Juliette Small and Marco Mariscotti Ree (15-year-olds); and Kayla Brown and Sam Westerman (16-year-olds and over).
Beyond recognising the achievements of all these swimmers, it was fantastic to see so many members, coaches and parents at the event. The coaching team do a fantastic job, and it really feels like the club is thriving due to their hard work.
The swimmers who didn’t win awards and perhaps don’t often win medals or achieve county qualifying times deserve a special mention. Each member of our club is an individual and will have their own motivation for swimming. It might be beating their personal bests, keeping fit, helping their mental health or socialising with friends. Or any combination of these. Whatever the reason, they are disciplined, turn up week-in week-out and train hard. This emphasises the team aspect of swimming. Without all members, the club would be much worse off. None of those who got awards could do it without the rest of the team.
So as a team we head towards the resumption of competitions. Wish us well, we’ll report back here next month.
If you are interested in joining Cranleigh ASC, do come down and see us on a Sunday evening at Cranleigh Leisure Centre from 4.30pm onwards or visit our website www.cranleighsc.org.
We offer two free taster trial sessions, for children to see if they’d enjoy it.
