Academy Swim Team finish 2nd in Round 2 of the Bristol Penguins Winter Series

The Academy Swim Team travelled to Easton Leisure Centre in Bristol for their first Team Gala event since July on Saturday evening, taking with them a very young squad that took part in Round 2 of the Bristol Penguins Winter Series. As well as Penguins entering 2 teams the other visitors were Severnside Tritons, Bradford-On-Avon and Weston Super Mare swimming clubs. After a highly competitive and enjoyable gala AST Burnham finished second behind winners Bristol Penguins A.

This was a slightly different format to previous team galas with 4 age categories (10u/11u/13u/Open) and a number of mixed events and relays. It was also a chance for AST Burnham to give a lot of their newest and youngest team members the opportunity to compete alongside some of the more experienced swimmers from recent Cotswold League campaigns. In the opening 100M IM events Emily Knight (15) and Leo Woodrow (12) ensured a solid start was made with respective 2nd and 1st place finishes. The first few relays then saw early success with the Under 10 Freestyle Relay Team of Rosie Woodrow (10), Emily Glanville (9), Albany Powell (9) and Molly Scammell (10) finishing 2nd, as did the Under 11 Medley Relay Team of Charlotte Chard (11), Imogen Mawby (11), Arthur Astill (11) and Audrey Newton (11). The Under 13 Freestyle Relay team of Harry Glanville (12), Lauren Glanville (12), Matilda Taylor (13) and Xander Powell (13) then showed their speed with a great win.

It was then back to individual events and by the halfway stage AST Burham had notched up some great results. Xander (13) led the way with a dominant 50M Backstroke win, with younger sister Albany (9) also winning the 25M Fly and finishing 2nd in the 25M Back. Rosie (10) followed older brother Leo in picking up an individual win in the 25M Back, whilst Imogen (11) and Lewis Duggan (17) picked up an excellent pair of 1st places in the 50M Breast and 50M Fly respectively. Lauren (12) was just edged into 2nd place in the 50M Back and Lily-Rose Baker (14) marked her first swim team gala by grabbing 3rd place in the 50M Fly.

In the 3rd quarter of the night’s events the wins then dried up for a while which saw AST and Severnside tied in second place after 28 events. There were still some very good swims in the meantime though with several 2nd place finishes for Agnes Alexander (13), Harry (12) and Arthur (11) in the 50M Fly events and also for Zach Powell (15) in the 50M Back.

Going into the last quarter things started to pick up for the Academy Swim Team as Matilda (13) finished 3rd in the 50M Free, as did Molly (10) in the 25M Free. Albany (9) then got the first AST win for 16 events in the 25M Free followed straight away by Arthur (11) doing the same in the 50M Free. Imogen (11) quickly followed suit in the 50M Free before Toby Baker (11) took 3rd place in the 50M Breast, as did Amelie Rowley-Wall (16) in the 50M Free.

The final set of relay races then saw AST Burnham pull away from Severnside to secure 2nd place overall and demonstrate the competitive strength of the squad. The combination of newcomers with a few of the more experienced swimmers saw some great races as the Academy Team finished strongly. The Under 13 50M Medley Relay Team of Emily Druce (12), Toby (11), Agnes (13) and Leo (13) finished 2nd before the Open 50M Free Relay Team of Lewis (17), Matilda (13), Lily-Rose (14) and Zach (15) grabbed a great victory as Zach stormed down the last leg to haul them from 3rd to 1st place. The 8x25M Cannon rounded off the night’s swimming and it was great to see a relay team of Albany (9), Douglas Anderson (12), Arthur (11), Imogen (11), Evie Rowley-Wall (12), Leo (13), Aaron Mawby (14) and Emily (15), which contained several swimmers who had not raced the event before, pull off a brilliant win amongst the usual excitement and cheering.

Coach Nic Hazelton was very pleased with the evening’s efforts saying “The team swam amazingly well tonight for a well deserved second place. Thank you to our helpers and officials too, as well as our older swimmers Amelie, Zach and Emily who stood at the ends and helped out the younger swimmers as they lined up for their races.”

Results Summary

Full Results & Times

Full results and times can be viewed by clicking here.