Scottish National Age Group Championships 2019
The 2018 Scottish National Age Group Championships took place in Glasgow from 26-31 March. With a strong team of 86 swimmers taking part, the group were confident that they would be contending for the Top Club trophy once again.
After a very strong first day, we were in the lead by some 150 points, and with every day the lead only grew further! At the end of five days of competition Warrender was crowned winners of the Top Club competition by nearly 500 points, amassing a total point score of 1273.
Across the five day meet the Club had 189 Top 10 individual performances which included 22 Gold, 21 Silver and 25 Bronze medals. In addition, we had 28 relay teams finish in the Top 10 with 5 Gold, 3 Silver and 5 Bronze medals! For the first time ever we fielded three teams in the Girls 14-16 age group, and all three teams finished in the Top 10 in the 4×100 Free Medley, highlighting the strength and depth of the girls in these age groups. The introduction of the mixed medley relays added an exciting element to the finals session with the 14-16yrs Mixed Medley team established a new Scottish Junior Club record of 4:16.36.
There were too many outstanding individual performances to mention them all but congratulations to Milly Milne (100 Free & Fly), Natasha Simson (800 Free), Owen Ray (50 Fly), David Kernohan (200 IM), Katie Goodburn (50 & 100 Breast), Angus Allison (800 & 1500 Free, 200 & 400 IM, 200 Breast), Liam McLaughlin (800 Free), Archie Goodburn (50 & 100 Breast, 50, 100 Fly, 100 Free & 200 IM), and Jamie Macdonald (400 IM & 200 Fly) who were all individual gold medallists, along with five of the relay teams which also finished on top of the podium across the course of the meet. In addition, Darcy Littlefield (50 Breast), Natasha Simson (400 Free), Ewan Batey (100 Back) and Owen Ray (100 Fly) were crowned Scottish Champions after finishing in second place to a non-Scottish competitor.
It was fantastic to see a number of swimmers across the age groups racing in the meet for the first time, with many of them also coming away with finals and medals.
Many swimmers contributed to the final result of the Warrender Team at this meet, which is why we won the Top Club award by such a convincing margin. Scores are derived from swimmers finishing in the Top 10 and they can only score once (on their highest scoring event) each day. It was certainly a great team effort and it was fantastic to see our senior swimmers (Calum Chittleburgh, Archie Goodburn, Jamie Macdonald and Sonny Kennedy) collecting the Top Team trophy on behalf of the team in what will be their final year representing Warrender at Scottish National Age Groups. The coaching staff was very proud of the overall professionalism displayed by the team, as well as the strong level of team support and encouragement that prevailed throughout the five day meet.
I would like to thank the team of coaches who contributed to such a successful week of racing. Obviously a huge amount of time and effort went into coaching the athletes in the lead up and during the meet, and it is important to recognise the coaches who have underpinned this work by developing the swimmers in their younger years before reaching this level. It really is a team effort!
Swimmers will now refocus and reassess their goals for the remainder of the season where we look forward to seeing them swim even faster at the summer meets and beyond!
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Top Club Scores