News

Over 70 Warrender swimmers were in action over the weekend at the first round of the East District Age Group Championships in Glenrothes.  With over 250 individual Warrender swims there were many excellent performances, but perhaps none more so than Craig McNally in the Boys 16/over 200 Backstroke.

Craig, who doesn't turn 16 until late next month, dropped his best time by 5 seconds and at the same time demolished the Scottish Junior Record when winning the bronze medal behind his team-mates, but much older seasoned internationals, Billy Purnell (2:01.51) and Lewis Smith (2:02.63).  Craig recorded a time of 2:02.66, beating the previous record held by former European Junior medallist Scott Houston at 2:03.17 from 2003.  Scottish Junior records can be broken by anyone aged 16 or under in the year of competition.  In contrast, for British Junior records, the swimmer must be aged 15 or under on the day of the swim.  Unfortunately, Craig's time was just 0.49 short of the British standard set last year by Crawley's Adam Harrington.  However, Craig will have another chance to break it at the Carnegie Winter Meet later this month.

Jennifer Dobson was also in great form over the weekend, winning all three of her events in personal best times.  Competing in the Girls 14/15 category, Jennifer stormed to gold in the 200 backstroke (2:18.33), 200 butterfly (2:20.03) and 400 IM (4:57.45).  Sally Wood continued her progression with a brace of wins in the Girls 16/over section, striking gold in the 400 IM (4:49.40), and 200 butterfly (2:20.23), whilst also claiming silver in the 200 backstroke (2:18.92) behind Carnegie's Elouise Barber.  Marnie Stewart took the bronze behind Sally and Elouise in the backstroke event (2:22.35), whilst Helen McRoberts did likewise in the 400 IM (5:06.75) and also grbbed silver in the 200 butterfly (2:27.13).

The Boys 14/15 age groups remains strong for Warrender with several excellent performers reaching finals or the podium.  Murray Lawrence led the way with a superb victory in the 200 butterfly (2:15.69) leading home a Warrender 1-2 with Craig Benson snatching silver (2:15.77).  In the 200 backstroke, Connor Wilson swam a great race to take silver (2:14.28), whilst in the 400 IM, Murray was again in form, taking bronze (4:48.24).

In addition to the clean sweep of medals in the Boys 16/over 200 backstroke noted above, the club did likewise in the 400 IM, with this time Lewis (4:27.90) taking gold ahead of Billy (4:32.58) in silver, and an extremely fast finishing Craig Hamilton in third place for the bronze (4:33.64).  Lewis made it a brace of titles by also picking up gold in the 200 butterfly (2:03.72).

At her first ever East District Age Group Championship meet, Iona Paterson was a surprised but over the moon silver medal winner in the Girls 10/11 years 200 breaststroke after a stunning swim of 3:23.17 in an early heat left her on the podium of this heat declared winner event.

The Girls 12/13 years age group saw Ailsa Small reaping the rewards of some recent hard training, as she raced to a double medal haul, first taking bronze in the 400 IM (5:17.30) then going one better in the 200 butterfly (2:36.04), both swims were large lifetime bests.

At the conclusion of the first weekend's racing (of four in total over the coming months), Warrender (23 points) have established a lead of 4 points over Fife rivals Carnegie (19 points) in the race for the Solripe Trophy as the District's top club.