Belper Marlins started their Arena league premier division first round at Rugby with a fine performance finishing in 5th place with 156 points. 

 

Unfortunately, due to illness on the way to the gala, one of our 11 y/o  lads could not swim [get well soon Nick] and we were unable to field teams for the 11y/o boys relays, but in the individual events, they performed very well with lots of PB times. This [as ever] was a tough gala but I was delighted with the number of PB time produced by our swimmers and the improvements in technical skills shown.  All of the younger age groups did some great swims and although they may not have won they put everything into it for the team. Great commitment, great team spirit!

 

The Men’s team and  15y/o lads dominated their age groups winning  8 events between them 

 

Once again congratulations to all on a fantastic team performance.

 

I’d like to take this opportunity to make a couple of points. Very few swimmers travelled on the bus to Rugby. This is a shame as it is part of the whole Arena league experience and part of team building. I realise it makes everyone about half an hour later home but unless you have a good reason you should be travelling on the team bus.

 

Secondly, when I put out the team for selection  I had 10 swimmers say they were unavailable to swim. This is very disappointing – the Arena league is the biggest team event of the season and I would ask all swimmers to ‘go the extra mile’ to make themselves available for the team if selected. It is an honour to be selected to swim in this competition. We have worked our way up from division 3 North to premier league over the past 12 years and you should be proud of your selection. It is tough enough to compete at this level for a small club so please support the Marlins by swimming when selected.

 

Our winners in  8 events were:

Mike Brett

Chief Coach

Belper Marlin SC