'Confident' swims from returning Step Rock members

The Step Rock swimmers recorded personal bests and put in some excellent performances

Eleven swimmers took part, and each delivered confident swims.

First to race were Isla Hedley, Anna Suttie, Freya Hedley, and Ellie Wilson in the 50m freestyle.

Anna and Ellie both reached the final in their respective age groups, and with PBs, and remarkably all four girls secured times within their Scottish National Age Groups Championship (SNAGs) standard.

Five boys, Oscar Geary, Finch Geary, Sam Coull, Fraser Stewart and Payton Cooney), raced the50m breaststroke. Oscar, aged only 11, was making his debut at this level. Sam, took almost 0.5s off his PB in the final, to take home bronze.

Rowan Geary joined the fray, so six Step Rock boys contested the 50m back.

Rowan, Finch and Sam all improved significantly on their entry time, whilst Fraser’s new PB saw him seeded fourth for the final, eventually finishing sixth.

That was in no small part due to his 400m freestyle race not long before, a 10 second improvement but just outside of the podium places in fourth.

A 10 second PB was enough for Oscar to take bronze medal in the same event, whilst a closely-fought battle between Sam and Finch saw new PBs for both. Ellie, Freya and Isla raced well in the 50m butterfly, Ellie twice lowering her PB to finish seventh in the final.

The second day saw more of the same from the team. Amelia Saeed had a strong debut swim in 50m breaststroke, a 0.6s PB giving her 12th place.

Another neck-and-neck battle between Finch and Sam, this time in the 400 IM, saw the former take the spoils, a bronze medal. Sam settled for fourth . Not to be outdone by the boys, and despite being unfavourably seeded, Ellie raced off the blocks in her 400 free with such determination that not only did she achieve a SNAGs 400m time, but her 100m split was also a SNAGs qualifying time – and she was rewarded for that effort with a silver medal, behind only Tranent swimmer, Zara Krawiec.