In a busy weekend in the Autumn programme with the club also featuring in the Arena League round two and Witney Distance Meet, City of Oxford Swimming Club hosted their second Development Meet of the season. Oxford swimmers competed with six visiting local clubs (Abingdon Vale, Banbury, Four Shires, Kidlington, Wantage and Witney) and once again showed great attitude, talent and potential.
The Development Meet was a chance for Oxford’s youngest swimmers to gain valuable experience; with some as young as eight making their debut at a gala and many others achieving personal bests (PBs). The future also looked bright for some of the more experienced swimmers as hours of dedicated training were justly rewarded with drops in their times and the opportunity to qualify for the upcoming County Championships.
Academy Development Coach, Liz Basterfield said:
“It was particularly good to see some of our younger swimmers put into practice the skills they’d learnt in training and at our half term Dives and Turns Camp. Dives have really improved and we look forward to more work to build on the underwater phases and streamlined kicking off the wall.”
Overall City of Oxford’s 10 year-old Eleni Ioannou and 9 year-old Faaris Sharif were stars of the meet, both coming top of the long list of competitors in their age groups in two events (from a possible three).
There was particularly strong swimming from the Oxford girls. In their opening event of 200IM, Eleni Ioannou (10), Ella Joyce (11), Ellen Tranter (12) and Hannah Austen (15) all came first in their age groups. In the 100m backstroke Cerys Obbink (8), Maisie Kavanagh (11) and Mai Thomas (14) took first place. In the 200m breaststroke Eleni Ioannou (10) and Amelia Brown (12) topped their age groups. Finally, in the 50m freestyle Mila Burovska (11) and Hanna Austen (15) came top.
For the Oxford boys, top place in the 100m freestyle went to 9 year-old Monty Salmon (9). In 50m breaststroke 8 year-old Gabriel Richmond (8) came first, along with Faaris Sharif (9) and Thomas Johnson (11). In the 50m freestyle, Faaris Sharif again came top of the 9 year-old group with Zachary Powell led the field for the 11 year-olds.
Well done to all who competed. A big thank you goes to the coaches and parent volunteers who enabled the meet to run so successfully – especially the officials and timing room volunteers who kept the events running under pressure.
Full results are available on the COSC website.
Printable version of this press report is available via this link: COSC Dev Meet 2 report Nov 2017