Guernsey Press

Barracudas just fail to bring home the trophy

HOW close can you get?

Published

HOW close can you get? A brilliant team effort by the Beau Sejour Barracudas Swimming Club saw them finish just three points away from bringing home the Merrill Lynch Investment Trophy from Jersey in the annual four-way meet involving them, the Guernsey Swimming Club, Tigers Jersey and the host club, Jersey.

In striving to break the Tigers' 20-year reign, the Barracudas demonstrated their ability to produce quality swims, winning 12 of the 34 individual events and nine of the 16 relays and setting three new gala records in the individuals and two in the relays.

Records in the individual events came from Gail Strobridge and Tom Hollingsworth in the open section, with the latter setting a new mark of 59.74 in the 100m individual medley and the former a time of 1-05.01 in the 100m butterfly.

Island Games debutante Robyn Le Friec also claimed a record, hers coming in the 15-years-and-under 100m butterfly, in which she clocked a lifetime best 1-06.74.

She then went on to pick up a further win in the 100m freestyle in her age group, with Strobridge winning the equivalent event in the women's open section.

In an exciting finale and fighting for points to the bitter end, the Barracudas produced two further records. These came in the closing events in the programme - the men's and women's open 6x50m freestyle relays.

In a close encounter with Tigers in both, the women's team broke their own previous record with a time of 2-52.19, while the men shaved three seconds off the record previously held by Tigers to set a new mark of 2-29.51.

With swimmers restricted to two events in their respective age group, 15-year-old Jeremy Osborne, who will also be making his first appearance at the Games next week, looked impressive.

Not only did he win two events in his section with relative ease, he also claimed the men's open 100m breaststroke with a personal best time of 1-10.20.

Individual wins also went to David Hall and Charlie Spano in the 11- years-and-under age group, to Victoria Parfit in the 13-years-and- under and to Matthew Allen in the 15-years-and-under.

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