Arena League 2019 R1

Round 1 of the Arena League took place at Horfield Leisure Centre on Saturday.  For this round the clubs are drawn from a hat at the AGM and #TeamBackwell couldn't have had a tougher draw to start the season.  Facing much bigger teams including the likes of Team Bath, Bristol Penguins and Severnside Tritons it was always going to be difficult but our swimmers were determined to compete. 

There were an astonishing 19 Personal Bests set on the night... and of those that didn't set a new PB, most were less than 1second outside their PB.  The Coaches could not have asked for any more and the team should be incredible proud of their efforts on the night.

Not only were there PBs galore but there were also 6 club records set on the night as follows:

Mens 4 x 50 Medley Relay consisting of Reece L, Ben C, Guus V and James P set a new club best of 01:59.61

George L smashed the 12yr old boys 100m Breaststroke record set by Marcus Gardiner in 2010 by a whopping 6 seconds!  (Marcus is now a National breaststroke swimmer at CoB)

Max E took 4 seconds off the 12yr old boys 100m Fly record previously held by Jack White from 2013

Reece L set another record in the 16yr old boys 100m Back record taking 2 seconds off the time set previously by team mate Guus V last year.

Rebecca G set two records in the girls 17yr category.  In the 200 IM she took a simply crazy 18seconds from Rachel Adlington's  record set in the last century (1999 to be precise) as well as 4 seconds off the 100fly record previously set by Nikki James in 2010.

Final placings on the night were:

Team Bath 282

Severnside Tritons 239

Bristol Penguins 210

Barnstaple 184

Devonport Royal 170

Neath SC 169

Backwell 141