SWIMMING: Swimmers from across the Eastern region have given their seal of approval to a new event on the competitive calendar, after a highly successful inaugural 'No Frills 2002' open meet.

By Debbie Watson

SWIMMING

SWIMMERS from across the Eastern region have given their seal of approval to a new event on the competitive calendar, after a highly successful inaugural 'No Frills 2002' open meet.

The meet, hosted by Stowmarket Seals, saw some outstanding swims across the age groups, with personal bests sent tumbling by a number of competitors.

Top West Suffolk athlete Victoria Cadge produced a strong set of four swims to stamp her mark on the event.

She produced three personal best times in the backstroke, breaststroke and individual medley events.

Despite her freestyle performance being some three seconds outside of her previous best, Victoria won the event convincingly to walk away with four first places in total.

Stowmarket swimming sisters Joanne and Sarah Cuff produced double personal best times in the breaststroke to capture third and fifth places for the club.

Stowmarket's 12-year-old Nicola Prowse was the highest-placed club swimmer in the IM and backstroke with two eighths.

For the boys, overall honours were shared between Lakenheath's Konrad Karth (free), the Weston brothers Adam (breast) and Jake (back) from West Suffolk, Mark Stevens (fly) from Deben and Joseph Banns (IM) from West Suffolk.

Highest-placed Stowmarket swimmer was Joseph Hardwick (9th breast, 8th IM).

'No Frills' meets are becoming increasingly popular, with the events providing a simple arena for swimmers to focus on achieving qualifying times ahead of the Suffolk County Championships in March.

The event was 80 per cent oversubscribed, and many of Stowmarket's own swimmers were asked to stand down from the event this year to accommodate swimmers from other clubs.

Stowmarket team coach Nick Minns said: "Two thirds of the swims produced personal best times.

"There is an obvious gap in the competitive programme at this time of the year, just before the Christmas break, and the degree to which we were oversubscribed is an indication of that."

He added: "Unfortunately the perennial problem of obtaining enough competitive swimming time from a public swimming pool meant that we were only able to book the pool for half a day.

"With the level of interest we could have easily run this as a full day meet. I will certainly be recommending to the club that this meet should become a permanent fixture in the event calendar."

Results

Girls 200m IM: 1 Victoria Cadge (West Suffolk), 2 Lauren Rosier (WS), 3 Alison Ives (WS).

Girls 200m free: 1 Victoria Cadge (WS), 2 Kirsty Binnington (Ipswich), 3 Wendy Burrows (Deben).

Girls 200m back: 1 Victoria Cadge (WS), 2 Wendy Burrows (Deb), 3 Alison Ives (WS).

Girls 200m breast: 1 Victoria Cadge (WS), 2 Kirsty Binnington (Ips), 3 Joanne Cuff (Stowmarket).

Girls 200m fly: 1. Lauren Rosier (WS), 2 Rowan O'Brien (WS), 3 Ashley Drake (Lakenheath).

Boys 200m fly: 1 Mark Stevens (Deb), 2 Konrad Karth (Lak), 3 John Bibby (Lowestoft).

Boys 200m breast: 1 Adam Weston (WS), 2 Joseph Banns (WS), 3 Jake Weston (WS).

Boys 200m back: 1 Jake Weston (WS), 2 Konrad Karth (Lak), 3 John Bibby (Low).

Boys 200m free: 1 Konrad Karth (Lak), 2 John Bibby (Low), 3 Mark Stevens (Deb).

Boys 200m IM: 1 Joseph Banns (WS), 2 John Bibby (Low), 3 Mark Stevens (Deb).