Report by Mike Keeble
Races | Gold | Silver | Bronze | |
Michael Keeble | 3 | 3 | ||
Michael Patchett | 4 | 2 | 1 | |
Gemma Cawte | 4 | 3 | 1 | |
Helen Scarf | 3 | 1 | ||
Chris Webster | 4 | 1 | 1 | |
Jari Goddard | 2 | |||
Josh Jones | 4 | 1 | 1 | |
Sam Garrison | 2 | 1 | ||
Dawn Bottoms | 2 | |||
Richard Cafferata | 2 | |||
and | ||||
Pauline Brand (swimming for | 5 | 5 | ||
Godfrey Green (swimming for Pentaqua) | 3 | 2 |
This was a strange event for us, not only because each length was twice as long as we are used to, but more particularly because there were no relays. Because of this, Godfrey chose to swim as Lincoln Pentaqua for which he is technically first claim, (although I can’t think of the last time he swam in competition for them), and Pauline swam for Birmingham for which she is second claim, but …oh never mind, it gets far too complicated. Suffice to say whichever club they named, they were really swimming with us. Luke was with us, but a few days before had picked a fight with an itinerant who had proved to be bigger and meaner than him and was thus unable to swim due to his wounds. So it was that 12 of us went out to challenge the best that Ponds Forge could throw at us.
As you can see from the table above, we didn’t do badly for medals. Of particular note, Pauline won 5 golds from 5 races, and Mike Patchett won 2 golds and bronze from 4 races.
Click the conversion table for those of you who want to see the 25m equivalents.
As usual I will go through the names in the order they swam, which in this case is lucky for me because I can get it out of the way quickly.
Mike Keeble
OK you may have received an email from someone purporting to be Jari Goddard about a bit of a thrashing I might have got from some young whippersnapper of 57 doing Old English Backstroke. Well let me explain …..erm…..erm….erm…these youngsters come in with their new fangled arm strokes….erm OK I give in. Apparently my arm turnover rate is a wee bit slow too. There, has that covered it? I did OK though on the whole, and did manage to beat someone in the 50m back and 50m free.
Michael Patchett
Michael has suddenly become quite passionate about his swimming and has been working hard at training. I believed that this would have improved his results significantly, but even I was surprised at the amount of improvement. It is generally accepted that times are slower long course than short course, so to achieve a similar time long course as that achieved in a short course pool would be measured as an improvement, so when Michael knocked nearly half a second from his short course 50m backstroke time, we were pleasantly surprised. This was put to shame by the whole second he knocked off his 100m backstroke time and by three quarters of a second from his 50m free time. Just watch this space for Scarborough .
Gemma Cawte
If I have one complaint about Gemma it is that she doesn’t train nearly enough. Usually our Thursday conversation goes something like this:
Me “Hi Gem, you training tonight?”
Gemma “I would but I haven’t brought my costume/need to lifeguard/am teaching/can’t get wet/just washed my hair/have to go to work/maybe….”
She then gives me that cutesy smile and a little giggle and I say “Oh OK”.
Actually to be fair, she does train when she can, and particularly when there is a competition coming up, and gazing down on her backstroke I was very impressed with the grace and style with which she performed. Not only that, but her times were pretty good too. Her 50m breaststroke was only slightly slower than her time at Boston
Helen Scarf
This is the first time that Helen has swum for us, so I don’t really have anything to compare to. I am only pleased that she did swim with us, and hope that she enjoyed herself. Next time she swims with us I’ll be able to look at these results and see how much faster she is.
Chris Webster
Nobody works as hard in training or puts himself under more pressure than Chris. As if swimming at the same 50m pool as he swam at in the World Student Games was not enough, he also brought his other coach and his parents to watch. His 100m Fly was a pleasure to watch; he split on a 31 point and started back well ahead of the guy who would subsequently take the gold. Unfortunately for Chris, he had picked the very lane above which a very large African elephant was hanging around in the rafters. At about 10 metres out this malevolent beast launched itself from the roof and landed fairly and squarely on Chris’ shoulders, somewhat slowing him down. It is to Chris’ credit that in spite of this big buck elephant on his back he maintained his rhythm and finished the race in a strong second place. In the 50m fly Chris beat the guy that beat him in the 100m fly, but only made third place with a time which was only 0.33s outside his short course time in December. Chris ended the 100m and 200m freestyle just outside the medals.
Jari Goddard
Jari has recently adopted the Steve Morris training method (although there are rumours that he has popped in to the pool on a couple of Saturdays), but despite that he has managed to maintain reasonable performances in the pool. His times in the 50m fly and freestyle in this competition were pretty much the same as those in the December event if short to long course conversions are applied. It should be noted here though that Jari was convinced that long course times were generally faster than short course times, in which case his performance was desperately poor.
Josh Jones
Josh is another of our great untrained. Well at least he rarely trains on a Thursday because of lifeguard duties or his social life or something. He does come in with us on a Monday from time to time and puts a fair amount of work in. Having thus far slagged him off, he did manage to knock nearly a second off his short course time for 50 fly from last year, avoided getting disqualified in the 50m Breast and as a result won a bronze medal, was a bit slower in his 50m free, and won himself a silver in the 50m Breast in a pretty respectable time.
Sam Garrison
At this stage I am wondering whether in fact Jari is right and the long course times are faster than short course, or, as the conversion tables would indicate, in fact some of our swimmers have improved so much since December that they have improved their times over the short course event. Sam appears to be one of these. Her long course time for 50m free was faster than her short course time for the same distance. Unfortunately she was just outside the medals this time. Her time for 50m fly was marginally outside the time she did in the short course in December, but still represents a major improvement. Sam has really got her head around training lately and seems to have begun to enjoy it (probably because she and Chris gang up on me). The effect can be seen in these results.
Dawn Bottoms
I guess if you measure less than 5 foot from top to toe, 50m must seem even longer than for us less vertically challenged individuals. I’m not sure if this warrants the number of attempts she made to convince me to let her off at least one of her two races, particularly as she only dropped just over 1 second from each of her short course 50m free and fly times last December, and in her fly she avoided the elephant that had so successfully hampered Chris’ efforts in his 100m fly. It is a cross that Dawn has to bear that her finest stroke is the stroke that most of us find by far the most difficult.
Richard Cafferata
Or Cafferath or Cafeteria or….. Poor Richard, for some reason no one seems to be able to spell his surname. It must be one of those names that everyone knows how to spell better than the name’s owner. Perhaps this time it was Richard’s way of staying out of the limelight as I suspect that neither of his times impressed him much, but then it was nice to see him in the water. He does have this habit of convincing himself that he will return to regular training and usually manages a week or so before the end of January and then …… Well we shall see how 2009 pans out.
Pauline Brand
Pauline took it easy for this competition, only entering 5 races and not being required for relays. Of course it should be noted that the distance that Pauline swam was more than twice that of anyone else (the nearest being Chris with 400m) at 950m and she is as old as Godfrey and Mike Patchett added together (although you’d never know it to see her). And, what can you say about 5 races and 5 golds?
Godfrey Green
It would be fair to say that Godfrey had a mixed result from this event. Firstly he managed 40.86 for his 50m breast, which compares very favourably with his result in December when he was only 0.3 faster in a short course pool, and buoyed up with this result his 200m was a very creditable 3.25:41. Unfortunately he was disqualified from his 100 Breast for an illegal finish, which translates into touching with one hand. Now Godfrey claims that that is impossible, that he never touches one handed – except in training maybe sometimes. Let that be a warning to all you breaststrokers who think it is OK to touch one handed in training. If you do it in training, sooner or later you will forget and do it in competition.
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