Junior Arena League: Round 1 Report
12 May 2021
Competitive swimming returned to our home pool of Places Leisure Eastleigh on Monday evening with Round 1 of the National Arena Junior Swimming League. This competition is for young swimmers aged between 9-12 years and a strong team was selected by our Head Coach, Paul, from swimmers in our Performance and Junior 2 and 3 squads.
The team representing Eastleigh for our first ever entry to the competition was: Amelie, Arianna, Emma, Evie, Jessica, Amy, Megan, Ella, Alex G, Alex S, Elliot, Callum, Will, Alfie and Frazer.
For some of the youngest swimmers, this was their very first competition but the loud encouragement from their teammates on poolside helped overcome any nerves and the adrenaline helped push them to some great times. Although we were not allowed to have spectators at the event, we had lots of very proud parents watching through the pool windows and the swimmers and coaches were delighted to see all the support.
Each swimmer was permitted a maximum of two individual races plus relay events. Every performance by every swimmer counted towards the team's results and with 16 personal best times from a total of 24 individual events, it was a great effort by everyone.
Head Coach, Paul Dollery, commented:
"I saw that you all raced really well and created your own great fun atmosphere for yourselves and your fellow swimmers cheering each other along every race. I know many of you were still nervous about racing yet this does help your race times when the adrenaline flows and I can say there was some great Personal Best times achieved from you all."
There are two further rounds of the competition: one in June and another in July. It will be great to see how our talented youngsters perform in the upcoming events and how they develop over the next few years.