National competition is a springboard for Thurso club swimmers
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Thurso Amateur Swimming Club provided five swimmers for the prestigious Scottish National Open Swimming Championships held in Glasgow over three days.
They competed as part of the Highland Swim Team and were racing against the fastest swimmers, regardless of age, from all over Scotland and farther afield.
Keira Bain (17) had five swims. Although normally specialising in butterfly, on this occasion she achieved her best result in the 50m backstroke, getting close to her entry time of 34:93 and maintaining her entry seed position.
She also swam in the 50m, 100m and 200m fly events, 50m freestyle and the 400m individual medley where she achieved a long course personal best.
Tom Armitage (16) qualified for 10 events – the 50m, 100m, 200m free and backstroke, the 50m and 100m butterfly and the 200m IM. Normally, Tom's strongest stroke is backstroke but he was to have most success in the 200m fly, posting a long course PB of 2:26.21, shaving 3.86 seconds off his entry time.
Although not achieving further PBs he improved six places in the 50m back and one place in the 100m back.
Megan Mackay, also 16, swam in her favoured 200m fly and although not improving on her entry time gave a determined performance in her race.
Jed Armitage (15) achieved qualification for five swims – 50m, 100m, 200m backstroke and 100m and 200m fly. Having had strong performances earlier in the season, Jed wasn't able to make any further improvements on his times on this occasion.
However, he improved two places from his entry for his 50m back and maintained his entry position for his favourite event, the 200m fly.
Emily MacDougall (14) achieved four entries but due to injury couldn’t swim her 100 back, having earlier posted an impressive PB of 3.06 in the 400m IM. This performance saw her improve her entry position from 27th to 10th in the heats and, given her young age, this is a notable achievement.
This was to be Emily's only long course PB but she also improved on her entry position by seven places in the 200m back.
All the swimmers enjoyed the experience of competing at this national level competition and it provided a springboard for some excellent performances later at the Scottish Summer Meet in Aberdeen.
