Suffolk County Championships 2015
Head Coach Report
This year Deben entered a strong field of 47 swimmers, swimming 302 individual
events over 5 days and 3 weekends of hard racing.
Overall, Deben finished in 4th place, which is a great result for the team as the points
system changes from BAGCATS to the best top 5 swims. In the end the top 5 team
points were: Ipswich 2654, West Suffolk 1743, St Felix 1113, Deben 635 and
Newmarket 602.
The top 3 placing in each age group received a rather attractive trophy again this
year. This really does go some way to better represent the achievement and hard
work required not only to gain County times in the first place but to finish in the top 3
at the end of the event. Huge congratulations to our swimmers placed in the top 3
which were as follows;
Age 9:
Female:
Matilda Bogle – 2nd
Age 10:
Female:
Ella Houston – 2nd
Age 13:
Male:
Lewis Moore – 2nd
Age 14:
Female:
Abbie Webb – 2nd
Last of all was the skins event and relays to round of this year’s competition. Sean
Burgess was selected to for the skins event where he did a fantastic job to finish 6th.
Amazing support could be heard (from Woodbridge probably) from all at Deben for
Sean and even made him smile during serious concentration before the event!
As usual team Deben did not disappoint with support for the relays either - great
stuff! There were some super close race finishes and Deben really pulled out all the
stops to do their best. Overall we finished 3rd which again is just a brilliant result.
Team relay points for the top 5 were: Ipswich 114, West Suffolk 107, Deben 77, St
Felix 57 and Stowmarket 46.
Awards were given for the top 3 teams in each relay event where Deben won one 1st
place, one 2nd place and three 3rd places. Fantastic results all round, no DQ’s and a
great way to finish the Championships on a high. A particular mention should go to
the super human efforts of the Girls 9-10 relay team (Laura Snelham, Hattie Reader.
Lily Reader and Ella Houston) who collected a 1st and 2nd place in the relays.
The Counties again saw many swimmers achieve either their first Regional times or
improving upon those Regional times they already had.
In the over 15 year old Youth category we now have a total of 9 swimmers (including Harry
Longbottom with 10 Regional times) who have qualified for the Regional’s on 3/4th May –
had there not been the change of age to 31/12/15 there would have been even more
swimmers who qualified.
In the 14 and under age group we so far have 3 swimmers who have qualified for the
Regional’s to be held 23rd to 25th May, including Lewis Moore who now has the full
set of 16 Regional times! For these swimmers there is a last chance meet on April
18/19th at Newmarket where I hope to see further swimmers achieve their first
Regional times this year.
In summary, the key results from this year’s Suffolk County Champs were as follows:
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Deben overall team placing 4th
Deben relay team placed 3rd overall.
9 Regional qualifiers in the 15 and over age group
3 Regional qualifiers to date in the 14 and under age group
4 Podium, top 3 finishers.
Of course, none of these events are possible without poolside support (Richard,
Matt, Karen, Ali, Dawn, Tracey, Jacqui and Elaine) who I extend a HUGE thank you
for their help. Yet another HUGE thank you goes to the poolside officials, the parents
who helped out on the door and all those who supported Deben swimmers.
A very special mention and MASSIVE thank you should also go to Sarah Elmer who
was the promoter of the event this year as she was last year. The huge amount of
hard work she has put into making the event possible was truly amazing and is a
great Ambassador for the Deben club. Thank you Sarah – see you there next year!
I’d like to add a personal and special thank you to all the swimmers who continue to
support me in my 2nd year as Head Coach, for training so hard leading up to this
competition and for representing Deben Swimming Club so well. I am very proud of
your results and so should you be – we had a record number of swimmers at this
year’s counties.
I continue to be amazed by the number of PBs (198) achieved across ALL ages
(>70% overall after swimmer withdrawals etc) and even more pleased to see so
many happy faces before AND after their swims. I’ve added some photos below of
the presentations – curtesy of Elaine Claydon.
Thank you and well done!
Best Wishes,
Steve Moore
Head Coach