Middlesbrough Conquer At Home AA Grade 11th & 12th February 2012

On the 11th & 12th February 2012, Middlesbrough Amateur Swimming Club hosted their annual AA Grade Meet which was well attended by many clubs in the North East region.
Collectively the home team swimmers achieved a total of 85 Gold Medals, 60 Silver Medals and 45 Bronze Medals. Outstanding!
Across the board personal best times were being smashed. Cade Darby swam his first competitive gala for the club attaining 8 gold medals. His older brother Logan continued the success through picking up 6 golds. Swimmers from the National Performance squad looked strong and fierce with Jamie Garbutt excelling in the 200 breastroke and Jack Baister dipping under the 1 minute/100 freestyle barrier for the first time ever in a time of 59.02 seconds.
From the National Age Group Squad Joe Carter stood out with a busy weekend, swimming under 5 minutes for 400m freestyle for the first time ever. Team mates Josh Watson and Liam Bollands also had solid swims with Josh excelling in his Backstroke events and Liam looking strong in his 200m IM and 200m Breaststroke.
MASC girls looked equally as strong. Emma Tweddell had a long weekend and swam 13 races and came away with 10 Medals in total. Georgia Nixon shone in the 200 freestyle, not her main event, winning it in a time of 2.11 seconds.
The Age Group girls showed promise posting some positive times. Rebekah Worthy and Anya Beddard collected 23 medals between them over the course of the weekend. Olivia McAvoy was another swimmer where gold seemed to be her favourite colour, to match her medals, Olivia had some great personal best swims. Others which showed medal and personal best potential were Lucy Johnson, Sarah Reay, Emily Wade, Olivia Campbell and Flora Finlay.
From the Development Squads Robyn Dickinson twinkled like a little star in the 50m freestyle and 50m breastroke collecting a gold and silver medal. Eva Finlay, Leah Robinson, Maddie Claire, Natasha Watson, Emma Styan and Laura Sheppard were amongst swimmers who relished the opportunity to compete in their home pool amongst a home crowd.

A great job to all involved!