Carlisle Aquatics was represented by five members in the Cumbria team at this year’s National Inter-Counties Championships. The annual event takes place at Sheffield’s Ponds Forge which is the host to 39 County Teams from all of Britain. The teams are spilt into two divisions; Cumbria being in division 2, reflecting the fact that there are only six swimming clubs in the county.
The team set off from Carlisle at lunchtime on Saturday and arrived at the hotel in Sheffield at four after pick-ups down the M6. After dinner and an early night the swimmers were ready to compete on the Sunday morning. For some of the younger swimmers this was their first National event and it must of being overawing to enter the pool with 1200 competitors all getting ready to swim. The pool at Sheffield was configured as two 10 lane 25m tanks. At first glance it did not look as long as our home pool until I pointed out that it was twice as wide as the Pools and during warm-up the swimmers realised its true length. After warm up we arrived at our allocated seats ready for the Captain’s parade and the competition. Carlisle’s Jack Barker was the Cumbria male captain.
Carlisle’s Leigh Thompson got Cumbria off to a good start in the 16/17 girl’s freestyle in a PB of 1-00.08. In the second and third events Cumbria was again represented by Carlisle swimmers both achieving PBs: Jack Barker in the 16/17 100m freestyle in 53.19s and Lucy Wilson in the 12/13 100m Breaststroke in 1-20.90.
Other Carlisle swimmers were Jack in the 100m Breaststroke who won the event in a time of 1- 04.34, Laura Davison in the 12/13 100m Butterfly in a time of 1-09.54, Leigh in the 100m Butterfly in a time of 1-07.24 and Zara McKnight in the 12/13 Backstroke in a time of 1-14.90.
This represented an excellent performance by the Carlisle swimmers as out of seven individual swims they achieved six PBs. Well done to all.
The Carlisle girls showing their allegiances!
