JFL Round Two - Gala Report
18 May 2022
Round Two of the Junior Fenland League coincided with Eurovision. Bottisham was host to Boston, Wisbech and Cops B, all teams that consistently finish well above us in the league. Our team rose to the challenge in the spirit of Eurovision because sometimes enthusiasm is more important than the scoreboard!
Two swimmers had to pull out at the last minute – Freddie B we hope you are feeling better soon – so thank you to Felix for stepping in at short notice and to Oliver for swimming all six events in his age group.
Our enthusiastic Round Two team comprised:
Our 10Us: Noah C and Isabelle, both swimming 2PBs in their first gala and JFL – welcome to the team!; Thomas, who swam PBS both his 50 Back and 50 Free, finishing both in a fabulous first place; and, Livia R who swam to a super second place with a 4 second PB in her 50 Back.
Our 11Us: new to the JFL team, Giselle, who swam 2 PBs and shared the PB-of-the-night award for her 16 second PB to finish second in her 50 Back; Lara who swam a PB in her 50 Breast; JFL newbie Felix, who swam PBs in his 50 Back and 50 Free; and, Jack, who swam to a fabulous first place with his 50 Breast and second in his 50 Fly with a new PB.
Our 12Us: Zac, who took a whopping 8 seconds off his 100IM PB; our fifth JFL newbie Noah D, who swam three-out-of-three PBs; Erin, who swam a 5 second PB in her 100IM; and, Emma, our JFL stalwart, who sliced a terrific 10 seconds off her 50 Fly.
And finally our 13Us: Oliver, who swam all six events in his age group, swimming a PB in his 100IM and slicing an excellent 8 seconds off his 100 Back; Leah, who swam 3 PBs, taking 5 seconds off her 50 Free, 6 seconds off her 50 Back and a fantastic 16 seconds off her 50 Back to share the PB-of-the-night award; and, Jessie, who swam 2 PBs and brought home our squadron relay team.
Well done all or you. We are, as always, immensely proud of you all.
And so to the 'thank you's: things went a bit pear-shaped on Friday afternoon when Covid and other events meant that we lost a referee and a starter. So I must start with a very big thank you to Vinnie and Patrick who continue to support the club despite it being several years since Anouk and Nick left for Cambridge. It was lovely to see you back at the JFL and we are very grateful that you chose officiating over Eurovision! A big thank you also to Deryck for time keeping, to Michaela for recording the results, to Natalie and Alex for shepherding poolside and taking charge of the PB bag, to Ana and Olivia for helping on the door, to our fabulous coaches Karl and Ciara, to all the siblings, parents, grandparents and carers for cheering our swimmers on, to everyone who donated to the raffle, and last but not least to the wonderful Freddy M for announcing and keeping me sane.
All times are now on SCM, although these results are still subject to scrutiny by the Adjudicator. The full results can be found on the Fenland League website here.
Round Three is at Newmarket on 11th June against our hosts Ely, Huntingdon and Mildenhall. Watch out for email invites, which will be coming out shortly.