City of Cardiff Swimming Club

9th February 2002

After a slow start to the afternoon where our coach driver A: couldn’t find his way out of Cardiff and B; couldn’t find his way to the Leisure Centre in Llanelli, we finally arrived just as all of the other teams were finishing their warm up. The gala organisers, to their credit, gave u s the whole pool and our entire team warmed up across all 6 lanes (Nikki says she may try this tactic at all our galas from now on!).

From the start of the meet,, the Cardiff swimmers swam with great enthusiasm and commitment, with nearly all of them clocking up personal bests in their individual events. There were 1st places for Owen Thomas (10/U Breaststroke & 10/U Backstroke), Josh Carbis (11/U Freestyle), Amy Locke (9/U Breaststroke),Victoria Srivastava (9/U Freestyle), Sean Cronin (10/U Butterfly), Chelsea Mellin (9/U Butterfly) & Ieauan Lloyd (9/U Butterfly) but probably the most satisfying results were the consistent 1st places in the relays, proving the depth of talent that our club contains.

Several of the swimmers in the 11 years age group were forced to pull out at short notice due to illness which meant that there were quite a few of our team that had to ‘swim up’ an age group which they all did admirably. Cardiff lead the competition right from the start and were ahead right to the final relays when 2 disqualifications handed the lead over to Hereford who ended up winning by a mere 3 points, with a large gap back to 3rd place Bridgend.

A special mention should go to Kerry Vokes, who was on poolside duty for the 1st time and managed to marshall all of the children despite the team changing, as the gala progressed, to accommodate the missing swimmers. The look of relief on her face at the end of the canon was a joy to behold!

Final results were as follows:

1st Hereford 250 points

2nd Cardiff 247 points

3rd Bridgend 203 points

4th Torvaen 189 points

5th Llanelli 177 points

6th Carmarthen 177 points