A 15-strong team of Bishop’s Stortford swimmers competed for the first time in the Frank Rider charity event hosted by Erith & District Swimming Club on Sunday 15th March. Other teams competing were Saxon Crown SC, Kent Weald SC and two teams from Erith SC.
Many swimmers from BSSC were competing for the first time in 20+ years and for a couple it was their first taste of competitive swimming. We were also delighted to have a few of our senior (18-25yr) swimmers join us in their first taste of Masters swimming. Nerves ran high and during the warm up, the younger swimmers were helping others with race starts and relay take overs.
The event consisted of mainly relay events, including a Butterfly 4 x 50m race and a Backstroke 4 x 50m relay. All were mixed age group so we had 18 year olds swimming with 60 year olds and a 25m race for every age group on all strokes except front crawl. We had 3 joker rounds but sadly only one 1st place – the Mens 18+ (50m) and 60+ (25m) combined backstroke event swam by Callum Davis and Peter Kelleway.
BSSC finished 3rd with 117, 2 points behind Saxon Crown 115 and Erith A just won with 111. (Lowest score wins, with Saxon Crown having a 40 point handicapped head start).
A great evening was had by young and old and all agreed we would be back next year. A total of £289 was raised for Breast Cancer charity.
