The Bermuda Amateur Swimming Association’s National Championships concluded after four days of competition, today in part one www.islandstats.com brings you comments from some of the coaches.
Ben Smith National Coach and Sharks Head Coach said, “The National Championships was a resounding success for the Bermuda Swimming. As it was the first opportunity to compete at the new pool using new timing equipment and new starting blocks there were some moments of worry leading into the biggest local meet on the calendar.”
By the second day of the meet many of the fears had been addressed and the meet was running very smoothly. He continued, “We need to give a big thank you to the NSC staff for working tirelessly to have the facility ready for each session and for making adjustments to the new equipment to make everything work so well. All the local volunteers who officiated and organized should also be commended for putting on a great meet at the new facility. We also had a great helping hand from Mike Kinish from Isle of Mann, Trevor Cowen from Canada and veteran official Chris Smith. Along with Alice Mastalir they helped make Nationals run smoothly with their eye on the success of next month’s Island Games.”
Talking about the event he said, “All of this strong support set a great stage for the stars of the meet which we're our local swimmers. With the amazing results of Summer age groups on 3 weeks ago we hoped for good swims but were treated to more great performances. With 4 swimmers stepping up to make the National training program qualifying times, several swimmers hitting qualifying times for next season and everyone hitting personal best times it was a sensational opening meet for the new NSC pool.”
“On the final day we were treated to a great 200 free women's race that saw both Maddy Moore and Shannon Hassell dip under the record but Shannon touched ahead of Moore so it is her record for now. In the men's 200 free there was a battle for first place between Andrew Beveridge and Jesse Washington of the Sharks but Jesse was too strong at the end as he lowered his 13-14 record again in taking the title.
It was great to see some of the really strong swims in the junior national portion of the meet with the likes of Ashley Irby, Emma Harvey leading the way with spectacular performances. The finale of the meet was the 50 Freestlye and we were treated to some very close races with Jesse Washington taking the Men's Title while setting a new record and Rebecca Heyliger taking the Women's Title. The performances of Rebecca Sharpe who flew in from University of Toronto need to be highlighted as she performed at her best with really good swims in her signature backstroke events. As an example to the strong crop of young girls coming behind her it was good to have her back. The swimmer who stole the show in my opinion was Heyliger who has recently returned home for the summer from USC. Rebecca swims for the University that sat at number 1 in US swimming for most of the year and has not had as many opportunities to compete because she is on such a powerhouse team. She made sure that we all remember how talented she is with spectacular performances in multiple events. She captured the high point female title while dazzling in both free and fly events and swimming life time bests. I am looking forward to having these swimmers perform at the CCCAN Championships in Costa Rica at the end of the month and we should all be excited about what we should see from our Island Games team in July.”
