[City’s medallists receive the top visiting club trophy from Cardiff’s coach. Pictured left to right – Charles Pauling, Artur Marton and Rosie Hilton-Dew]
City of Oxford Swimming Club put in an outstanding performance at the Tiger Bay Long Course Open Meet held at Cardiff International pool from 18-19 March, collecting a total of 115 medals and speeding tickets.
The calibre of City’s swimmers was evident as they secured a whopping 29 golds, 31 silvers, 19 bronzes and 36 speeding tickets (awarded to swimmers faster than the upper qualifying time set for the meet). This strong team result ensured that City were named the top visiting club out of a field of 44 clubs from all over Wales (such as Torfaen Dolphins, Welshpool Sharks and hosts City of Cardiff) and across England (from Doncaster Darts to Exeter City and Wycombe District Swimming Club).
The competition included para swimmers with City’s Chris Currie, age 22, awarded medals in all his multi-disability events with three golds in 50m and 400m freestyle and 50m backstroke, and two silvers in 100m and 200m freestyle.
12 year-old Ayanna Fulga (pictured) also had an excellent meet, winning the prize for ‘top girl’ for scoring the most points for her races across the two days. Ayanna took an impressive two speeding tickets in 50m breaststroke and 100m butterfly, four golds for 400m IM, 200m IM, 200m butterfly, 200m freestyle, and two silvers for 200m backstroke and 100m breaststroke. She said:
“I am extremely proud to be part of such a brilliant club with amazing swimmers and coaches! All the long course personal bests (pbs) I achieved helped me to get the top girl award. Everyone’s pbs and medals helped gain us the top club award! Training hard really does pay off!”
One of City’s youngest swimmers at the meet, nine year-old Eleni Ioannou, took three speeding tickets in 200m IM, 100m backstroke and 100m breaststroke, silvers in 50m and 100m butterfly and bronze in 100m freestyle. Other standout achievements by the girls included 10 year-old Juliet Anthony who earned a spectacular seven speeding tickets in 50m, 100m and 200m backstroke, 50m and 100m, 200m and 400m freestyle, two golds in 200m breaststroke and 200m IM and a bronze in 50m breaststroke. Also successful in the 10 year-old category were Ella Joyce, with gold in 400m freestyle, silver in 50m butterfly, bronze in 200m IM and bronzes in 50m and 100m breaststroke and Zara Porter with speeding tickets in 50m freestyle, and 50m backstroke, golds in 100m and 200m backstroke and 50m butterfly. For the 11 year-olds, Lily Brabbin won speeding tickets in 100m freestyle, 200m breaststroke and 200m IM, and won gold medals in 400m IM, 200m breaststroke, 200m freestyle, and a silver in 100m butterfly. In the same age group, Megan Peake, took speeding tickets in 50m butterfly, 200m IM, 100m freestyle, and gold in 200m backstroke and Ellen Bagley took speeding tickets in 100m and 200m breaststroke, and bronze in 50m butterfly. 12 year-old Willa Merttens took a speeding ticket in 200m IM, gold in 200m breaststroke and three silvers in 400m IM, 50m butterfly and 50m breaststroke, while Rosie Hilton-Dew, also 12, took a speeding ticket in 50m freestyle, gold in 100m breaststroke and bronze in 200m IM. Safiya Sillah, age 13, won gold in 200m breaststroke, two silvers in 200m IM and 100m freestyle and two bronze medals in 50m backstroke and 200m freestyle.
Not to be left out, notable performances by the boys included 10 year-old Ethan Bird with two speeding tickets for 50m freestyle and 200m backstroke, two golds for 100m freestyle and 50m breaststroke, and two bronzes for 100m and 200m breaststroke. Also for the 10 year-olds, Kayden Sillah, took four speeding tickets for 50m, 100m and 200m breaststroke and 50m freestyle and Lachlan Middleton, took two speeding tickets in 100m freestyle and 100m butterfly and silver in 200m freestyle. In the 11 year-old group, Christopher Skelton, won a speeding ticket in 50m freestyle, gold in 50m butterfly and silver in 400m freestyle, while Ollie Conway took three speeding tickets in 100m, 200m free and 400m freestyle, silver in 200m backstroke and bronze in 50m backstroke. His brother, 12 year-old Jamie Conway bagged no less than four speeding tickets for 50m and 100m breaststroke, 400m IM, and 50m butterfly, along with two golds in 100m butterfly and 200m breaststroke. 13 year-old Diego Bravo was awarded two speeding tickets in 50m freestyle and butterfly and James Austen, age 17, took two golds in 100m freestyle, 100m butterfly and bronze in 50m backstroke.
Congratulations to all the swimmers who took part and put in such great effort to make this a successful team performance and a big thanks to the coaching staff and volunteers, without whom it couldn’t have happened!
All the medal and speeding ticket winners and full results are available from the City of Cardiff Swimming Club website.
[ City’s Ayanna Fulga is presented the ‘top girl’ trophy]
[Megan Peake, Juliet Anthony and Nina Brown]