In the Zone

Event: South Zonal Meet Venue: Millfield Date: 28th and 29th January 2012

Last weekend, the top swimming clubs from around the country gathered for the three Zonal Swimming Championships.  The Northern Meet took place at Sheffield, the Central Meet at Corby and the Southern Meet at Millfield.

With the qualifying time for the meet pitched in-between regional and national standard, the quality of entries was high with Swindon Dolphin fielding a squad of 12 including 12 year old S14 swimmer Craig Harris.

Harris, still riding high from some good performances at the Disability Sport Events (DSE) Championships last November, continued his good run of form with two personal best swims, winning silver in the 200m freestyle and bronze in the 100m backstroke.

Craig Harris ~ 200m freestyle silver, 100m backstroke bronze

Jon Audis had his sights set on a qualifying time in the forthcoming Olympic Trials, and in the heats of the 100m backstroke set a time of 59.40s, just 0.55s shy of the target.  Going into the final ranked second behind GB international Marco Loughran, the 31 year old struggled to find his pace and those few tenths of a second, although did enjoy the consolation of a bronze medal.

Jon Audis ~ 100m backstroke bronze

James Clark found himself in three finals over the weekend, shaving a few more hundredths off his 50m freestyle time and edging closer towards his first national qualifying time of the season.  Other finalists were Victoria Jennings (400m freestyle and 200m butterfly), Charlotte Pitts (200m freestyle), Lauren Matthews (400m individual medley), Liam Herbert (100m backstroke), Kathleen Baker (200m individual medley), Anna Roger (200m breaststroke) and Georgina Pitts (200m freestyle).

Swindon Dolphin now look forward to the Wiltshire County Championships in February and March. With success at some high quality long course open meets behind them, this should put them in good stead to repeat the overwhelming success of recent years.