SWIMMING: HARPENDEN Swimming Club were in action in two galas at the weekend, a Junior team attended the CoStA Christmas Peanuts Gala at Herts Sports Village where they finished in a commendable fifth place with some very good swims.

Katialin Dang took first place in both her individuals (25m butterfly in 19.89s & 25m breaststroke in 22.94s) as well as helping the U11s girls to first place in the 4x25m medley relay and the 4x25m freestyle relay.

Mai-An Dang took the clubs only other individual first place in her U13s 50m backstroke touching the wall in a time of 37.59s. The gala provided some useful data for the club to help them formulate their squad for next year’s Herts League competitions.

Meanwhile at Borhamwood, the club entered two teams of U14s girls and one team of U14s boys in the Hertfordshire ASA Bob Daplyn Trophies competition. This competition is the Countys Junior Team competition where teams swim all four individual strokes and an individual medley – no swimmer being able to compete in more than one individual event, and then finishes with medley and freestyle relays.

The girls’ B team finished a respectable 14th out of the 15 teams entered.

The girls’ A team meanwhile went better with fourth place including a second place for Tania De Malglaive in her 50m backstroke in a time of 34.83 and a third place for Phoebe Salkeld in her 50m freestyle in 30.96.

The other results were Katy Jackson sixth in the 100m IM in 1:24.44, Juliet Merelie fourth in the 50m breaststroke, and Mille Dixon 10th in the 50m butterfly in 40.77. The girls came fourth in both the relays, 4x50m freestyle in 2:09.21 and 4x50m medley in 2:30.11.

The boys exceeded everyone’s expectations.

Theo Dixon led off on the 100m IM finishing in fifth place in 1:18.87, Matthew Crawford followed with a second place in his 50m backstroke in 35.30, Michael Revell was next in the water and took another second place performance with second in the 50m butterfly in 32.51s and the individuals were rounded off by Ben Galvin who finished in ninth place in the 50m freestyle in 34.05s.

The medley relay saw the team finish in third place in a time of 2:04.93 and with just the last event to go there were only two points between Cheshunt and Harpenden for top spot.

Harpenden pulled out all the stops and managed to pull off an amazing result finishing in second place but managing to take the overall first place. This is the first time the club have won this trophy in its 50th anniversary and given that this is also the club’s 50th anniversary it seems very fitting.