The District Swimming Gala took place on Saturday 2 November. Once again the District is grateful to the Licensed Victuallers School on London Road for allowing us to use their pool for the afternoon.
Unfortunately, we did not have much of a response for this District event so on the day the team was made up of just 4 Cubs – Matthew Molyneux, Ben Molyneux, Robert Morgan and Jonathan Dye. Special thanks to Jonathan who came along to the event after sitting an exam in Slough.
As usual the event was split into 2 age groups with the under 9½ races taking place first. However, this year there were additional races so that some started in the water while others had a diving start. This addressed criticism from previous years where it was suggested that those people who could dive were at an advantage. Diving was still not allowed on the width races as these took place in the shallow end of the pool.
As usual any one competitor was limited to a maximum of two pointed events plus the relay.
Under 9½ year olds
Because Matthew was our only swimmer under 9½ we were not able to enter all the races in this age group.
| 1 Width freestyle (crawl – start in water) |
-
|
| 1 Length freestyle (crawl – diving start) |
Matthew Molyneux (came 2nd)
|
| 1 Width breaststroke (start in water) |
-
|
| 1 Length breaststroke (diving start) |
-
|
| 1 Width backstroke |
Matthew Molyneux (came 3rd)
|
Open
| 1 Length freestyle (crawl – start in water) |
Ben Molyneux (came 5th)
|
| 1 Length freestyle (crawl – diving start) |
Jonathan Dye (came 6th)
|
| 1 Length breaststroke (start in water) |
Robert Morgan (came 5th)
|
| 1 Length breaststroke (diving start) |
Ben Molyneux (came 3rd)
|
| 1 Length backstroke |
Jonathan Dye (came 1st)
|
| 1 Width butterfly (no points for this event) |
-
|
| The Plunge (Cub dives in, makes no stroke and glides as far as he can) |
Robert Morgan (came 4th)
|
The Relay
| 1 Length backstroke |
Jonathan Dye
|
| 1 Length freestyle (under 9½) |
Matthew Molyneux
|
| 1 Length breaststroke |
Robert Morgan
|
| 1 Length freestyle |
Ben Molyneux
|
Our relay team came 3rd.
In addition there were two MEDLEY events which are not pointed for the Palmer Shield but are for individual winners medals for the fastest times.
- Under 9½ Medley consists of 1 width backstroke, 1 width breaststroke and 1 width freestyle swum consecutively. Matthew Molyneux entered this event and came 1st.
- The Open Medley consists of 1 length freestyle, 1 length backstroke, 1 length breaststroke and 1 length freestyle swum consecutively. Robert Morgan and Ben Molyneux entered the heats for this event. Robert was 4th in his heat while Ben came 3rd overall. Places were decided between the two heats based on individual times.
Palmer Shield
The points from the events excluding the Medley and Butterfly are all added up and the winning team takes home the Palmer Shield. The positions and points this year were as follows.
|
Place
|
Team
|
Points
|
|
1st
|
1st Sunningdale
|
60
|
|
2nd
|
1st Binfield Seonee
|
58
|
|
3rd
|
1st Ascot (All Saints)
|
40
|
|
4th
|
1st Binfield Wolves W
|
31
|
|
5th
|
2nd Bracknell Stags
|
30
|
|
6th
|
1st Binfield Wolves X
|
25
|
|
7th
|
7th Bracknell
|
25
|
Very well done to all those who took part. It is very disappointing that we couldn’t find some other people to take part in this event as if we had entered more races we would have undoutably improved our score.