On 29/30 August, the first of the West District Sprints and Relay meets took place in this season’s swimming calendar and North Ayrshire Amateur Swimming Club had 17 of their top swimmers taking part.

This was a great achievement in itself for a small club.

Always a popular event, it was held at the Citadel Swimming Pool in Ayr and attracted clubs from all over the West District area from Oban to Dumfries. These exciting two days were for 50m swims and 100 Individual Medley, with a few thrilling age group relays to mix things up. The 50m events are very popular as the swimmers don’t get to compete at this distance very often and the relays are incredibly fast and noisy!

Medals from the two days were: Glen Duffy (16) Largs, secured a bronze medal in his favourite butterfly stroke, and Abby Kane (12) Largs, secured a new personal best.

In the boys 13-14yrs medley relay the North Ayrshire team of Rory Dickson, Evan Clark, Connor Tarran and James Marshall secured a silver medal for their efforts and were narrowly pipped for the bronze in the freestyle relay.

Head Coach Sharon Welsh was pleased with her teams overall performance so early in the season and hopes this will continue to improve over the coming months.

Last weekend Auchenharvie Swimming Pool was busy with swimmers from over 15 clubs as they competed in the longer distance events from 200m to 1500m. North Ayrshire ASC had 16 swimmers competing at this event and 51 out of a total of 66 swims were PB’s.

Highlights from this popular meet were: Glen Duffy (16) Largs secured gold in the 200 butterfly, silver for 200 back and bronze for his 200 IM. Fraser Kelly (12) Largs was swimming well and earned himself a gold medal in the 200 butterfly with a huge 14 second PB. He also secured gold in the 200 freestyle. James Marshall (14) Largs was in great form with a full house of PB’s and a silver medal for his 200 breast and bronze for 200 IM and 200 back. Connor Tarran (13) Fairlie is back on form with five new PB’s and gold medals for 200 IM, 200 back and 200 fly. He also won silver for 200 breast.

Head coach Sharon Welsh was delighted with the results and the high number of improved swims from all the swimmers who took part.