The mixed 4x100m freestyle team swam a record in their Saturday lunchtime heat at Tollcross International and, within the next 24 hours, Orla Rabey updated her individual long-course mark for that distance.
The mixed freestyle quartet clocked 3min. 46.15sec. in their Saturday lunchtime heat at Tollcross International, slicing 2.72sec. off the previous mark.
They also enjoyed a close race against Jersey, who finished directly ahead in 3-45.26, albeit using very different tactics with their two male swimmers going off first.
Tatiana Tostevin swam her preferred opening leg in 59.94, backed up by Charlie-Joe Hallett’s 53.49, Rabey’s 59.12 and 15-year-old Henry Bolton wrapping it up with a 53.60 chasing down the Jersey anchorwoman. Guernsey swam faster than the Seychelles, Papua New Guinea, Maldives and Ghana.
‘The mixed relay is really difficult to get to a final for, as so many more countries have got two males and two females,’ team manager Sara Parfit said.
‘We knew it would be hard to reach a final.
‘We were still trying to go as fast as we could and get the Island record, and I was surprised by how much we broke it by.’
This followed the women’s 4x100m freestyle quartet experiencing the glory of a Commonwealth Games final the previous night, having qualified with a Guernsey record.
They finished eighth and just short of the record they had set in the heats with a 3-56.64.
Guernsey utilised the same quartet of swimmers, two experienced competitors bookending young debutants Emma Bourgaize and Tallulah-Mae Rautenbach, and again all broke 1min. Rabey touched just 0.03sec. behind the Cayman Islands’ anchorwoman.
Individually over the weekend, Rabey excelled within a 100m freestyle heat that had two of her relay teammates competing.
The retiring swimmer’s 58.40 for runner-up marked a 0.27sec. improvement on her mark from Birmingham 2022, while Tostevin posted 59.10 and Bourgaize 59.64.
‘She had a super swim,’ Parfit said of Rabey.
‘It was lovely. Guernsey was out in force, and all three of them did really good swims.’
Other highlights included Rabey swimming 1-03.76 in the 100m butterfly to become a reserve semi-finalist – a privilege that Oriana Wheeler narrowly missed after going 0.18sec. slower for a new personal best.
Ronny Hallett also earned a reserve spot in the 50m breaststroke, swimming a PB of 28.23 in an epic heat where he was chasing Jersey’s Filip Nowacki and narrow winner Adam Ramsay-Peaty.
On his 15th birthday weekend, Zach Maiden gifted himself PBs of 4-22.81 for the 400m freestyle and 2-19.26 in the 200m backstroke.
Fellow young gun Bolton’s efforts included inching down his 50m freestyle best to 24.58 with an impressive show of speed.
In the 200m freestyle heats, sisters Delphine and Elodie Riley went in adjacent lanes and proved almost inseparable.
Delphine finished in 2-11.01, just 0.67sec. clear of a PB swim by her younger sibling.
‘It’s day three, we’ve had an Island record every day, a lot of PBs, and hopefully that will continue for the rest of the week,’ Parfit added.
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