THE month of May was a busy time for Sturton by Stow based brother and sister duo James and Loveday Beresford. The Gainsborough Dolphins swimmers competed at three Open Meets during this period attending events at the Ponds Forge International Pool at Sheffield and the impressive John Charles Centre for Sport in Leeds. With Loveday in a last ditch attempt to gain qualifying times for the Midland District Championships she was unlucky just missing out by fractions of a second in the 100m and 200m freestyle. Despite breaking the 70 second barrier for the first time in the 100m she recovered from this disappointment managing to record four personal best times at Leeds in an event where all proceeds went to SportsAid, helping to fund athletes and swimmers from all across the country. This level one meet attracted some very fast swimmers from Wales, Scotland and all over the Yorkshire and Midland counties with Loveday excelling in the 200m freestyle. Against a competitive field she claimed a silver medal in the girls 12 years recording a life time best. Not to be outdone James also recorded four personal best times at this meet, his best coming in the 10 years 200m Individual Medley (I/M) where he reduced his previous mark by an impressive 11 seconds. After experiencing a 50m pool for the first time they returned the following week to Ponds Forge in the Rotherham Metro Level One Long Course meet. Competing in two events at Sheffield, Loveday again swam superbly to reduce both her 200m and 400m freestyle personal best times, finishing 12th in her age group in the former. This was again an impressive effort against swimmers from Plymouth, London, Tyneside, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Entering only one event James did find it tough going over the four lengths in the 200m backstroke as he swam outside his personal best by just over a second. Competing against the same the level of competition Loveday returned to Sheffield a week later to compete in a meet hosted by the City of Sheffield. Unable to reduce her 200m freestyle time for the third consecutive week she placed 16th in her age group as she did in the 100m freestyle, shaving just one tenth off her personal best. These achievements are quite remarkable as both only learnt to swim eighteen months ago and continuous hard work and dedication will endeavour to bring greater reward in the future. Anyone wishing to start swimming or for further information please visit www.gainsboroughdolphins.co.uk.
