Meet report - METS Teams 2023
On Saturday a squad of 44 DARTES swimmers assembled at Adwick leisure centre for the re-introduction to the Doncaster swimming calendar of the METS Teams. This year Adwick, Armthorpe, Dearne Valley, Edlington and DARTES competed for the Bridon Shield and to be crowned the relay champions of our city. For various reasons this meet hasn’t taken place since c2015, so a big thank you to everyone involved, in particular Carol and the crew at Adwick, for restoring this once annual highlight of Doncaster swimming.
The DARTES squad had representation from all of our 6 squads, ranging in age from 7 to 15. It is really pleasing to see the green shoots of a very strong swimming pathway from our still relatively new ‘club squad’. The youngest two age groups showed great promise and were more than a match for most of the other clubs in the water – exciting times ahead.
It was also great to see so many of our Performance Squad (County, Regional & National squads) swimmers competing for their feeder clubs. Equally as pleasing was the fact that we are now in a position that almost all the top young swimmers across Doncaster clubs are part of that performance pathway – well done to everybody involved in achieving this across Doncaster swimming, long may it continue.
Onto the action. The DARTES performance was probably best summarised by the final event of the day, the 8-swimmer cannon, where each club selects the fastest boy and girl from each age group to compete for double points as a Grand Finale to the gala. We ‘finished’ a credible 2nd behind a very strong Armthorpe team however a faulty relay takeover meant a DQ and zero points. Throughout the meet we were extremely competitive in most age groups and finished (ignoring DQ’s) with a mean average placing of 2.6 out of 5, however DQ’s and the lack of a boys open team meant we left far too many points behind and we actually finished 5th overall. Rather than be too disappointed with this we should be hugely encouraged by what this can look like in the not-too-distant future.
There were many many great swims and as always it’s difficult to pick out the highlights however those that particularly stood out to me were;
- Lena Szczerba in the 11/12 ‘B’ team with a storming breaststroke leg of 45.86 which pulled her team right back into the race as she caught several other swimmers. Although not an official PB (only the 1st leg of a relay can count as a PB) this represents an almost 5 second time drop. Well done Lena!
- 7-year-old Theo Jones made a brilliant start to his first ever gala swimming a hugely impressive 25m freestyle in 20.62. He and his team were hard done by on the day though, having finished 2 in the medley relay and 1st in the freestyle relay only to be marked as a ‘time only’ (no points scored) as the team contained a swimmer who was too young. You were brilliant boys, and your time will come!
- Archie Ainslie dipping below the 30 second mark for the first time in the 11/12 boys 4 x 50m freestyle relay with a time of 29.55. More pleasing than the time itself was seeing Archie implement some of his technical ‘goals’ which he has been working hard on in training over the past couple of months.
- Team of the day was the Girls 11/12 years squad of Maddison Simmonds, Bethan Kershaw, Darcy Nelson and Hiba Gillani who secured two 2nd placed finishes along with 8 points for the club total. Great effort girls, our VIP’s!
All in all I think it was a positive experience for swimmers, parents and coaches alike in what was a fantastic poolside atmosphere. Our Congratulations go to Armthorpe Kingfishers on their well-deserved victory. Well done to Pete and the coaching team over there and of course all of the swimmers.
All swimmers and parents are reminded that the next opportunity to race as a team is at 2nd round of the Barnsley Minor League on 25th June which will be hosted at our home pool, Rossington. The event is now open on the app so please confirm your availability for selection ASAP.
Full Results can be found here /ddsc/UserFiles/Image/QuickUpload/mets-teams-full-results-2023_001427.pdf
**NB - I actually calculate our poitns at 30 not 24, but it doesnt make any difference to the standing**
DARTES Splits / times can be found here /ddsc/UserFiles/Image/QuickUpload/mets-teams-2023-dartes-splits_083775.pdf
**Remember that swimmers 1&3 in the 9/10 yrs relays started from a dive and swimmers 2&4 started in the pool which can have a signifiacnt effect on times. This also applies to the cannon where the girls started from a dive and the boys from in the water.**
