Victory in Birley Trophy
03 Oct 2012
We took
a young team of "diddy" swimmers to Whitwick Leisure Centre on
Saturday 29th September for the first competitive competition of the 2012/13
swim season.
During
the team talk ahead of the first event I told the swimmers that they were good
enough to win this competition and that they should all go out and race as
though they new they were going to win.
In selecting who would swim what events I had
taken the decision to give as many swimmers an individual event as I possibly
could, which in the end meant only two swimmers did not get and individual
event but boy did they make up for it in the relay events they swam in giving
me a selection headache for the future. I took this decision as the event gave me an opportunity to give
swimmers that would normally only get relays in a league gala where points are
important and they did not disappoint.
We were
always in contention throughout the gala but never quite managed to get in
front of Market Harborough but the run in to the last event gave us an
opportunity to win if we could finish two places ahead of Market
Harborough. The race started well with
the first few swimmers giving us a good lead but such was the strength of the
other teams that they pegged us back leaving our last two swimmers to pull out
the stops to take us to victory. Jessica Trotman swam a great leg giving Joshua Munroe the task of
bringing the team home in first place which he duly did with some style. All that was left was where did Market
Harborough finish and in a close run thing Coalville beat them into third place
giving us a well earned victory.
In the
end the competition was much closer than I thought and I know we may have had
to share the win with Market Harborough but to be behind for the whole night
and to snatch the victory with the last race how more exciting can it get.
If
Coalville had decided to do a count back to see who had the most first places
then Hinckley would have won outright as we had 23 first places to Market
Harborough's 16.
To win
23 events out of 49 is a tremendous feat and I could not be more pleased and to
win any event it is not just the first places that count you need all your
swimmers to perform to their best and do as well as they possibly could on Saturday
this is exactly what they did.
I would
also like to say that I was very pleased to see all the swimmers remain behind
for the result of the gala because that is what a team event is all about the
whole team taking the glory. Thank you
and it would be great to see the same support at all galas regardless of the
result.
Parents
thank you for your support on Saturday is was very much appreciated especially
as you all stayed to see the result; more of this please. The swimmers will respond if you show how
much you want them to do well.
The full result sheet can be found on the
clubs results page.
Paul Sippitt
Head Coach