Swimming: Bristol best a level first for Poole (From Bournemouth Echo)

Swimming: Bristol best a level first for Poole

7:00am Thursday 13th October 2011 in Swimming By Roger Guttridge

POOLE’S rapid ascent towards swimming’s dizzier heights continued with a thrilling victory in their first Arena League Premier Division gala for eight years.

The 2010 Division One champions now sit proudly in third place in the West’s top flight with only Millfield and Plymouth Leander – both recent national league champions – above them.

Their rate of progress was underlined by the fortunes of the two clubs promoted with them, Yeovil and Soundwell, who finished bottom of their respective first round galas with less gala points between them than the Dorset club.

Poole’s victory by 10 points at Bristol’s Kingswood pool – by far their best-ever result at this level – also gives them one foot in the 10-team final, probably in Cardiff on December 10.

They should complete that step at Millfield on November 12, when a top-three finish against Millfield and four of the five teams they beat on Saturday would guarantee the trip to Wales and even fourth place would probably be enough.

Poole coach Robin Armayan said: “Because of a new rule that you can only swim in the final if you swam in the earlier rounds, we took a risk by picking a large team and not necessarily the fastest swimmers in some events.

“It worked quite well. It’s a pretty good result. We will have a stronger team in round two.”

Poole’s opponents included Swim Swansea’s Bournemouth old boys Martin Littlefair and European Youth Olympics champion Nathan Theodoris and Keynsham’s European junior double champion Siobhan O’Connor.

The newly-refurbished pool presented its own challenges including cloudy water, no PA system, a rail at one end which injured a Poole swimmer’s foot on the turn and starting blocks at the one-metre-deep shallow end.

After 13 events the gala was halted when officials were advised that this was too shallow to be legal for diving and, after another long delay, starts were switched to the deep end without blocks.

The league have now cancelled future galas at Kingswood.

Poole finished out of the first three only 13 times in 50 races and their results included 17 wins.

Individual winners were Jacob Peters in the 11/u 50m backstroke and butterfly, Alex Price (13/u 100m breaststroke), Courtney Rowan (15/u 100m backstroke), Alan Wong (13/u 100m back), Georga Harrison (11/u 50m fly), Maddy Kemp (13/u 100m fly), Dan Speers (15/u 100m freestyle), Harry Kemp (11/u 50m free), Jasmine Holmes (13/u 100m free) and Noah Vides (15/u 100m breast).

Fiona Hardie came second to world championships semi-finalist O’Connor in the women’s 100m butterfly and was also second in the 200m medley.

Poole’s national medley relay champions Alan Wong, Noah Vides, Todd Price and Dan Speers comfortably won the 15/u medley and freestyle relays.

Other relay wins: Boys 11yrs freestyle (Peters, Oliver Weston, Kelvin Wong, Harry Kemp) and medley (Peters, Wong, Kemp, Rafael McCreath). Girls 13yrs freestyle (Maddy Kemp, Sophie Eaton, Jade Norman, Holmes). Open 6x50 freestyle (Hardie, Katie Mills, Danni Burry, Naomi Vides, Sarah Meaker, Rowan).

n Fourth place and 167 points in a tough gala at Millfield earned Swim Bournemouth’s A team a more favourable second round draw at Newport and a chance to join Poole in Cardiff.

Jack Burton set his fifth county record in four months as he won the 15/u 100m breaststroke in 1:06.91, knocking almost a second off Ashley Stevens’s Dorset junior short course mark from 1995.

Bournemouth’s 11 and under boys provided four of their six victories, Matthew Collins winning the 50m backstroke and freestyle, Chris Parsons-Lowey the butterfly and these two plus Ben Samuel and Ethan Bell taking the freestyle relay.

Ben Wickens finished three bodylengths ahead of his nearest rival in the 13/u 100m breaststroke.