Vanessa Knight Memorial Meet Report
05 Jun 2022
Author: Lianne Marsh
On Sunday, 29th May 2022, 16 swimmers from Eastleigh SC attended the Vanessa Knight Memorial Meet in Bognor Regis. The meet is aimed at our younger and less experienced swimmers, it is a brilliant development meet with a great atmosphere. It was a packed programme, across two sessions, with 51 swims in total from Eastleigh. There were 25 PBs, with 30 of the swims finishing inside the top ten, some swimmers narrowly missing out on medals.
In our age 9-11 swimmers, the recent practice of starts and turns really paid off with some excellent dives and tumbles. Great to see nerves about block-starts being overcome by all our youngsters. We had several medallists in the younger girls events: Izzy T, Bobby, Emilia, Alzbeta all winning medals. We also had many PBs and good victories within our heats. In the older girls age groups, every one of our swimmers won at least one medal - a terrific achievement all round.
There were only 3 boys swimming that day, Alfie, Tudor and Ben, all consistently setting new PBs and being in, or close to, medal positions.
The Vanessa Knight competition awards medals based on A, B and C-grade times. For example, the fastest three swimmers that beat the A-grade time will win gold, silver and bronze, however the fastest swimmers above the B-grade and C-grade times also win golds, silvers and bronzes.
Top achievements
- Alzbeta - silver 50m free (B), unlucky to miss the 100m IM (C) gold medal by 0.03 seconds. Good swims in all events.
- Izzy T - gold 50m breaststroke (B), unlucky to miss the 100m free (C) bronze by just 0.11 seconds. Great PBs in both her events.
- Orla - smashed 5 seconds off her 50m free PB and 12 seconds off her 50m breaststroke PB, winning her heat.
- Bobby - gold 50m breaststroke (C), fourth 50m backstroke (B), fifth 50m freestyle (C). Strong swims in all her races.
- Abi - first ever 50m butterfly race and had an excellent start and turn to set her PB. Strong 50m freestyle with great technique.
- Ben N - silver 50m backstroke (C), fifth 50m freestyle (B), a great 9 second PB on 100m IM.
- Emilia - great swim to win bronze 50m breaststroke (B) against competitors a year older, with a 2 second PB.
- Tudor - bronze 50m freestyle (B), silver 50m butterfly (B), gold 100m IM (C). Powerful swimming all round.
- Alfie - an excellent fifth in 50m butterfly (B), achieved good PBs in all his events.
- Veronika - gold 50m freestyle (B) with a great PB, silver 50m breaststroke (C), silver 50m backstroke (C), fourth 100m IM (C) with another good PB.
- Eve - bronze 50m butterfly (B), good PB 50m breaststroke, massive 10 second PB on 100m IM.
- Pippa - excellent bronze 50m backstroke (B), good PB on 100m IM, fourth 50m butterfly.
- Jennifer - gold 50m breaststroke (C), bronze 50m butterfly (B), good swims in all events
- Rosie - bronze 50m freestyle (B) and fourth 50m breaststroke (C) with strong swims in both events.
- Ioanna - excellent gold and PB 50m freestyle (C), good PB on 50m butterfly.
- Rainbow - big PB and gold 50m breaststroke (A), new PB and gold 100m IM (C).
The swimmers were supported by Mandy and Andrew (coaches), Justin and Wendy (team managers). Iva attended as one of our Eastleigh Officials, and began her J1 training, doing an excellent job as a timekeeper for the morning session. Thank you to all of the adults that volunteered their time to make this event possible for our swimmers.
meet, report, vanessa knight, bognor, littlehampton, competition, junior