SHORTLY before Christmas nine Isle of Man swimmers competed in the inaugural City of Manchester Snow’pen Meet at the 50m Commonwealth Pool.
Between them they set two new island senior records and returned with five medals.
The competition was tough and the meet was heavily oversubscribed, so not all the swimmers got to compete in all of the events they had entered. There were also six Olympians competing and several more British internationals.
Gold medals came the way of Gubay and Cavendish Scholarship holders Charlotte Atkinson and Laura Kinley both in 50m sprint events.
Atkinson took the top spot in the 16-and-over butterfly in a new senior island long-course record of 28.70 seconds, and Kinley in the same age group breaststroke in 33.02 seconds. Both girls enjoyed a winning margin of more than a second, which is a significant gap in sprint events.
Atkinson also set a new senior island long-course record in the 100m butterfly, with a time of 1m 4.13s, giving her fourth place, just one spot behind Olympic individual medley swimmer Aimee Wilmott.
Swimming in all three breaststroke races in his first long-course event as a senior, Guy Davies knocked spots off all his previous best times and is now within touching distance of all three senior island records, two of which were set 10 years before he was born by Shane Stigant.
His time of 2:30.73 for the 200m earned him a silver medal and 1:10.97 for 100m a bronze. In the 50m he finished fourth in 32.52.
The remaining medal coming back to the island was a bronze for Steph Brew in the 14-15 years 50m breaststroke, in a time of 36.74.
Isle of Man coach Lee Holland said: ‘Special mention needs making to Zak Keig, Freya Keig, Luke Guthrie, Grace Guthrie and Amy Kinley who all came away from the meet with hard-fought races and a bagful of personal best times. ‘I am extremely pleased with the results produced this weekend and also glad that some areas were highlighted that we must continue to strive towards. When we travel across to meet some of the UK’s best it can open our eyes a little to what we are up against. ‘The island’s swimmers did not back down from this challenge and at no point felt phased by these big names in the sport. I am proud of all of them and their hard work really is starting to pay off.’