June News round up

01 Jul 2024

Mercian League Round 2

The second round of the Mercian League was on Saturday 15th June and was a very close gala, with teams quite evenly matched. Sharks finished 4th which puts us in 9th place out of 15 clubs going into the final round on the 13th July against Chase, Orion, Bilston and Rugby. Special mention to Jacob G and Toby S for stepping in to swim in the open boys and to Barney who heroically swam 100m back in his age group (finishing second) and then 100m fly 2 minutes later in a higher age group (and came 3rd !)

A big thanks to those who helped out.

Nuneaton Junior League round up

Thank you to everyone who worked so hard and represented Sharks in the Junior League. This was a huge team effort and we’re grateful to the volunteers who helped throughout! The madness is now over and the final league table has been compiled. Sharks finished 16th in the table, our highest ever finish in the premier league. We were quite comfortably clear of relegation this year with strong performances over the 3 rounds.

In the final round we achieved a 3rd place finish - our highest finish. The league is highly competitive and we are up against a few of the best swimmers in their age groups in the UK.

Nuneaton 256
Blythe Barracudas 228
Stratford Sharks 166
Chase 132
Bilston 130
Kingsbury 119

Especially well done to our group of 12 9-year-old swimmers taking part for the first year. We were very low on numbers in this age group at the start of the year and you all did amazingly well - especially some of the really late joiners who had less than a month of training. We also got through 3 rounds with very few disqualifications.

Results from Round 3 include first places from Grace (Girls 10 freestyle), Jacob (boys 11 breast) and boys 12 freestyle relay(Barney, Sam, Harry and Jacob). Our boys 12 team were really impressive at this event with big Pbs for Sam (freestyle), Barney (fly) and Harry (breast).

School Galas

On the school galas front there were school teams meetings at both ponds forge (ESSA Primary team championship) and at the London Aquatics Centre (IAPS), where Ellison, Harrison and Arabellawere all swimming for their school teams.

Masters

Well done Richard for competing in the quite chilly and very choppy 3.8km around Tenby sea front. Richard was 66th overall, 18th in his age category - a brilliant PB on last year’s 75th placement.
Well done to Daniel and Nat our for completing Windermere Lake Swim!! With very tough choppy conditions and two of their crew dropped out before the 5km mark, but well done to Nat who smashed it with a time of 4:18:32 and Dan at 3:00:48. Also to Adam at the Long Course Weekend: he braved a scary 2.4m sea swim on Friday, a hilly 112m bike ride on Saturday and a marathon on Sunday in 12hrs 45 mins. An incredible achievement.

Ali S won in both the 200 IM and 50 breaststroke at the London Masters Regionals. Ali and Katie W also came first in their age groups in the West Midlands Open Water regionals, both qualifying for National Open Waters. Theo S came 3rd (17/18) and Charly M came 1st (19+) so have also qualified for National Open Waters - massive congratulations to them all!

Mike Wardle Sprints

A huge number of swimmers (96!) participated in our annual sprints gala in memory of Mike Wardle. 20 under 9 year olds took part, for some of them it was their first gala. Thank you to the more than 40 people who helped out in some way. The huge enthusiasm of swimmers and volunteers was a fitting tribute to Mike.