Five events, five finals, seven PBs and three medals at a National level competition! BSSC Elites swimmer Kirsty Neill recently headed north of the border to the Scottish National Age Group championships (SNAGS), the largest event in the Scottish National swimming calendar that pre-pandemic attracted over 1000 athletes from across the UK and beyond. After a three year hiatus, the 2022 competition was held at the Tollcross International Swimming Centre in Glasgow and Kirsty qualified for five events in the 15 year age group: 50/100/200m Breaststroke, 200m Individual Medley and 400m Freestyle.
Day one of the competition and Kirsty secured a place in the 50m Breaststroke final with a great personal best (PB) time and broke her own PB in the final that evening to get Bronze.
Next up was Kirsty’s favourite race, the 200m Breaststroke. In qualifying she was narrowly beaten into second place, but after some text conversations with her BSSC coach, Mathieu Leroy, who was watching on the YouTube live stream back in Stortford, she absolutely stormed to Gold and a new PB in the final. Having been nearly 2.5 seconds behind the leader at the turn for the final length, the commentary on the live feed during her winning comeback was hugely entertaining!
“Well, I did not see that coming at all”
“She should not be able to do that – it should not be possible”
“Came back like a train”
Days three and four there were more two more events, two more finals and four more PBs, resulting in 6th in the 400m Freestyle and 4th in the 200m IM.
The final day of the competition was another breaststroke day, this time the 100m and another rivalry with the swimmer she beat into second in the 200m Breaststroke. Unfortunately, this time it was Kirsty’s turn to lose out, but she still secured a superb Silver medal.
Congratulations to Kirsty for all her performances (and the family for the great support!), but especially the 200m Breaststroke swim that makes her the fastest 15 year old in Britain.
