On December 14th, Worcester Swimming Club travelled to Stafford to compete in the third and final round of the National Arena Swimming League.

In a strange twist of fate, the Club was again drawn against perennial rivals Chase & Stourbridge, both of whom had narrowly beaten Worcester in Round Two - and unsurprisingly, the gala proved highly competitive with little to choose between the teams.

Regrettably two unusual slips in race discipline led to disqualifications that cost Worcester dearly, the team narrowly finishing third instead of tied for first. The final points were: Stourbridge 212, Chase 212, Worcester 204, Long Eaton 165, Ledbury 149 and Ludlow 98.

There were many fine swims, not least in the opening event, the 200m Individual Medley. Back from Oxford University, Katherine Rollins led the team off in terrific style recording a Personal Best time of 2.27.81 to land the first victory of the night in the Ladies IM while Sergey Mandradzhiyski delivered an equally impressive performance for second place in the Men’s equivalent race, his splendid 2.09.18 one of 17 Personal Best times achieved in the 34 individual events, an excellent "strike rate".

Sergey won the Open 100m Backstroke while there were also brilliant individual wins for Chloe Mabbett (11/U 50m Freestyle), Cara Lee (13/U 100m Freestyle) and Alice O’Toole (13/U 100m Backstroke) but it was in the relays that Worcester really excelled, with the girls leading the way.

The 13/U team of Alice O’Toole, Cara Lee, Lydia Tainty and Becky Hodson was unstoppable, winning both the Medley and Freestyle Relays very comfortably. In the 11/U age group, Francesca Daniels, Tazmin Pugh, Chloe Mabbett and Nixie Turner all recorded brilliant splits to win the Freestyle Relay while in the Open age group, Dani Hunt, Katherine Rollins, Hayley Weaver & Zoe Turner combined brilliantly, with fast swims and quick takeovers, to notch up another first place.

Many other swimmers caught the eye, most notably Lydia Tainty (13/U Butterfly & Breaststroke) and Sarah Cowin (15/U Backstroke & Breaststroke) who both earned valuable points for the team with a brace of second places each - while Nixie Turner (11/U Breaststroke), Tazmin Pugh (11/U Butterfly), Sam Allen (13/U Freestyle), Matthew Rochell (13/U Backstroke), Tabitha Monkhouse (15/U Breaststroke) and Ivo Mandradzhiyski (Open Freestyle) all finished runners-up too.

Head Coach Mark Stowe was satisfied: "It was a shame that two disqualifications cost us a share of first place but they didn’t take the shine off another very good team performance".

The full team was: Francesca Daniels, Nixie Turner, Tazmin Pugh, Chloe Mabbett, Alice O’Toole, Becky Hodson, Lydia Tainty, Cara Lee, Sarah Cowin, Tabitha Monkhouse, Amy Cooke, Hollie Horton, Dani Hunt, Hayley Weaver, Katherine Rollins, Zoe Turner, Thomas Wong, Josh Smallman, Harry Sykes, Sebastian Jerrum, James Marsh, Sam Allen, Chris Edwards, Matthew Rochell, Jonathan Edwards, Luke McCluskey, Greg Everest, James Allen, Joel Smith, Sergey Mandradzhiyski, Ivo Mandradzhiyski and Rupert Monkhouse