KENT JUNIOR LEAGUE 2024 – ROUND 1

Date: 23/03/2024

Congratulations to our Kent Junior League team who competed at the Glass Mill Leisure Centre, Lewisham. A tough first round draw found us competing against last year’s winners Bromley, Beckenham, Saxon Crown, Bexley and Erith & District all of whom finished higher in the league than us last year. We finished the night in a very credible 4th place.

In the individual events, we managed 23 new short course PB’s out of a total 32 swims. Impressively we also had no disqualifications. Some notable improvements were seen from Charlotte J, firstly improving her 200m I.M time by 8.5 seconds and then improving her 100m Breaststroke time by 5.5 seconds. Maria F knocked almost 6 seconds off her 100m Breaststroke, Ellie K knocked 7 seconds off her 50m Butterfly time, Paige C reduced her 100m Backstroke time by almost 9 seconds, Alex K in the same event, took almost 5 seconds off and Florence DL reduced her 100m Butterfly time by almost 8 seconds. Huge congratulations to our individual winners, Georgia C in the 50m Butterfly, Serena O in both the 50m Freestyle and 50m Breaststroke and Rocco P in both his 50m Butterfly and 50m Backstroke. All these swims produced new short course PB’s for these swimmers.

Special mention goes to our relay teams. The relays are as important as the individual swims for accumulating points for the team, so I massively appreciate the swimmers who join the team to take part in these ‘A’ galas. Whilst the split times recorded by myself cannot be used officially, there were a number of huge PB’s in some of these events.  Do I dare mention goggles, and the need to ensure they are on tight enough? However, well done to Johann D who managed to complete his 50m leg of the freestyle relay with his goggles in his mouth.

Huge thanks to Gemma and Yaa who looked after the children poolside, Jo M, John B and Mira who officiated for the club, Kim Longland for providing guidance and feedback to the swimmers, the swimmers themselves for their team spirit and excellent behaviour and finally the parents who came to support and cheer on the team.

This year’s league consists of 21 teams. In the first two rounds these teams compete at 4 galas and the results from these galas are combined to provide the overall league position for each team. I am very pleased to report, whilst only finishing 4th in our gala we are currently placed 7th in the overall league showing the strength of the teams competing at Lewisham.

Individual times and placings can be found on the DDSC Facebook page.

FINAL GALA TEAM RESULT

1 BROMLEY 269 points

2 BECKENHAM 236 points

3 SAXON CROWN 171 points

4 DARTFORD DISTRICT 150 points

5 ERITH AND DISTRICT 146 points

6 BEXLEY 86 points

The second round is on Saturday 22nd June 2024, venue to be confirmed.