Times tumble at spring meet
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THE annual Elgin spring meet was attended by 15 clubs from all over the north district area, including an eight-strong team from Thurso Amateur Swimming Club.
Thurso’s Tim Ridgley was the top performer for the club in this competition, returning home with two bronze medals for the 14/15 years 200m backstroke and 200m breaststroke events, while his team-mates enjoyed success with PBs across the board.
The three Thurso ASC girls were all competing in the first event of the competition, the 400m freestyle.
Eve Nicoll (11) was first in the water in heat two and she achieved a seven-second PB to finish in 6:12.53. This was followed by Eilish Noble (14) in heat three who also recorded her first PB of the weekend, finishing in a time of 6:05.13. Lucy Macdonald (13) swam in heat four.
The youngest Thurso team member, Mark McCoustra (10), had a strong swim in the boys’ 10-11 years 200m backstroke to improve on his previous best by 11 seconds to finish in fourth place with a time of 3:10.83, in what was a well-paced race.
The two 13-year-old boys, Jordan Bain and Craig Mackay, were next to compete in the 200m freestyle. Jordan finished in fifth place in a time of 2:30.27 and Craig in 2:38.27.
Jordan, Craig and Tim Ridgley (15) also took part in the sprint 50m open freestyle event in session one, finishing in times of 32.11, 31.94 and 27.19 respectively, producing PBs for Jordan and Tim.
Session two started with the boys’ 400m individual medley. Jordan was the sole Thurso representative in this event. He swam well to record his third PB of the day of 6:19.04.
Eve and Eilish bravely competed in the girls’ 200m butterfly for the first time and finished well in 3:45.75 and 3:32.18.
Session two continued with more PBs for Mark (3:52.49) and Eve (4:10.87) in the 200m breaststroke and Tim (2:24.53) and Craig Yuille (2:33.11) in the 200m back, with Tim’s medal-winning performance concluding the day’s swims.
Session three on the Sunday morning started off for the boys, Mark, Jordan and Tim, with the 400m free. Mark and Jordan achieved PBs of 6:10.18 and 5:20.33 in this event, with strong swims from both. This was Mark’s first competitive swim at this distance and he swam well as the youngest.
Eve continued her good form with another PB in the 200m free (2:59.26). This was followed by Lucy’s 200m breaststroke swim which earned her a great PB of 3:39.18, a fantastic seven-second PB.
The final age group event of session three was the 14-to-18-year-old 200m freestyle for boys and girls. Eilish and Tim again recorded new personal bests of 2:52.82 and 2:14.37 respectively.
Lucy concluded the session with her second PB of the morning in the open 50m free event for girls. Her performance improved her PB to 33.00.
The final session of the meet raised the excitement level in the Thurso team as twice team members went head to head.
In the 12-13 years boys’ 200m backstroke, Jordan and Craig Mackay were competing in adjacent lanes. Jordan went out fast in the first 100m to take a good lead but lost ground in the second 100m to allow Craig to finish ahead of him.
Both boys recorded PBs of three seconds, finishing in times of 2:48.14 and 2:46.93. This gave Jordan a clean sweep of PBs in his five events.
The 14-15 years boys’ 200m breaststroke was equally exciting with both Craig Yuille and Tim gaining tremendous PBs which saw them finish in third and fourth respectively in times of 2:47.63, a 10-second PB for Craig, and 2:44.21, a six-second PB for Tim.
The final swims of the weekend for the girls saw Eve compete in the 400m IM to record a time of 7:03.65 and Eilish in the 200m breast (3:43.93).
This rounded off a successful meet which impressed head coach Andy Foster.
