YDSC Yeovil District Swimming Club

Yeovil's Daniel Liu, Beth and Zak Aitchison swam brilliantly at the British Gas ASA National Age Group Championships in Sheffield. Read more .....

Beth Aitchison was competing in her first ever nationals in the 100 and 200 metres breaststroke. During the last 11 months Beth has worked incredibly hard and more importantly she has worked smartly ensuring that everything is right. In the 200 metres breaststroke she has knocked 15 seconds from her personal best time over the last 11 months and had managed to qualify for these nationals by 5/100ths of a second. She entered the competition ranked in 24th spot. However Yeovil swimmers do not go anywhere just to make up the numbers and Beth swam a tremendous 2.5 second pb to touch in 2 min 49.31 and jump up to 13th place. In her 100 metres she swam a 1 second pb to finish in 1 min 18.93 and claim 13th again. Beth narrowly missed both finals by 0.3 sec and is now looking forward to next season, working even harder and aiming to qualifiy for a wide range of events at next years nationals. Well done Beth, great swimming.

11 year-old Zak Aitchison was also swimming in his first nationals competing in the 100 and 200 metres breaststroke. In the 200 metres Zak swam a personal best and finished a highly creditable 15th. In his 100 metres breaststroke Zak swam an exceptional 2 second pb in 1 min 22.59 to finish 2nd in the heats putting him in a great position for the evenings finals. The final was very exciting as all 10 boys stepped up their performances massively and the race was very close among all these swimmers. The national final was a new experience for Zak - racing the most exceptional breaststrokers nationally in his own age group he discovered that after the turn at 50 metres all the other 9 boys were along side of him! Zak took another 1 second off of his personal best in the final and touched in an awesome 5th place. Being the 5th best 11 year-old breaststroker in Great Britain is some achievement and he is already very excited about going back next year for a medal. Well done Zak.

Daniel Liu is now an experienced performer and a well known name at the nationals. This year 13 Year-old Daniel surpassed even last years fantastic results. His best performance came in the 100 metres breaststroke where he had qualified in 4th place for the final. He really went for it and at the finish Daniel and Rio (his rival) were neck and neck and several metres ahead of the rest of the field. It was very close - Rio got the touch and Daniel got the silver and a 2 second personal best in an incredible 1 min 10.34. Daniels other results were: 200 metres individual medley - silver; 100 metres butterfly - bronze; 200 metres breaststroke - 4th; 400 metres individual medley - 4th; 200 metres butterfly - 6th; 200 metres freestyle - 14th.

13 Year-old Daniel Liu proudly displaying his 3 medals - well done Daniel!

Daniel's and Zak's performances contributed to a top-20 finish for Yeovil in the national boys club top points! Coach Alex Pinniger was absolutely thrilled with this as it put Yeovil alongside / above some of the big city performance heavyweights!