SWIMMERS from Carnegie’s Sharks, Orcas and JD squads travelled to Grangemouth last Sunday for the Bo’ness Mini Meet and despite this being the first away meet for many of them, they all performed brilliantly, continuing to show all-round improvement and an appetite for racing.

The small group came away with a host of personal best times, a handful of medals, Too Fast awards and a Best Boy award, finally finishing fourth overall in the top team rankings despite only having a small group travel over, including a few eight-year-olds and only one 12-year-old.

In the butterfly events, the Carnegie youngsters showed the early-season focus on ‘fly development is paying off with Olly Price taking gold with a strong display in the boys’ nine-years & under and eight-year-old Thomas McElwee won a medal for sixth place overall with a huge personal best.

Carnegie were strong in the girls’ nine-years & under ‘fly with a gold medal for Zara Boo Nicholson, a bronze for Sophie Reid and a fourth place finish for Imogen Paton with the girls lowering entry times by six, eight and 10 seconds respectively.

In the 10-years boys’ age group, both Alex Hay and Finlay Hay won Too Fast swimming awards with dominant ‘fly displays and new personal best times.

In the 11-years age group, Saul Paton also took a Too Fast award with a great display and huge 10-second personal best time. For the girls, 11-year-old Cerys Burn took bronze with a two-second PB.

In the backstroke events, eight-year-old Thomas McElwee took a fourth place award with a superb six-second PB and strong display against boys a year older.

For the girls, nine-year-old Imogen Paton blew away her opposition with a superb performance, taking nearly four seconds off her PB and winning a Too Fast award.

In the 10-years age group, Alex Hay continued to shine with another dominant display, again winning a Too Fast award. Finlay Hay took a fifth place award in this event with another three-second PB swim. In the 11-years age group, Saul Paton took a sixth place award.

Into the freestyle events, Olly Price smashed his PB by eight seconds with a superb swim from Heat two of four and taking the bronze medal.

In the 10-years age group, Alex Hay knocked a second off his best time with another strong display and Too Fast award. Finlay Hay took the silver medal with a fine swim and new PB. In the 11-years age group, Saul Paton took a fourth place award with a four-second PB swim. Finishing just outside the medal places in seventh position, Amy Molloy took four seconds off her PB with a fantastic freestyle swim in the girls’ 11-years age group.

In the breaststroke events, eight-year-old Gregor Hay won a superb bronze medal with a fine swim, Thomas McElwee took fourth place and both boys look strong against much older and bigger boys and lowered their PBs by three and five seconds respectively.

In the girls’ nine-years age group, Sophie Reid looked strong with a fine display and took nearly six seconds off her previous best training time, winning the silver medal.

In the 10-years age group, Finlay Hay took the bronze medal with a good swim. In the 11-years age group, Carnegie took up two positions on the podium with Saul Paton winning silver with a PB and Adam Paton won bronze, finally dipping under the 52-second mark with a good PB.

The penultimate events were the 100m Individual Medley (IM) swims and all the Carnegie swimmers competing took massive chunks off previous PB times – Thomas McElwee, Gregor Hay, Evie Menzies, Eilidh Oliver, Sophie Reid, Zara Boo Nicholson, Robbie Graham, Saul Paton and Hannah Bennett. Alex Hay won a gold medal in the 10-years boys’ age group with a seven-second PB and team-mate Finlay Hay won a fourth place award with a four-second PB.

Rounding off the day were the mixed relays with the highlight being a bronze medal for the nine-years & under team of Olly Price, Zara Boo Nicholson, Thomas McElwee and Sophie Reid.

Olly Price was named as Best Boy overall for his age group.

Also competing throughout the day for the young Carnegie crew and swimming huge personal best times were Cameron Lister, Olivia Beattie, Christy Mitchell Henry, Evie Menzies, Eilidh Oliver, Robbie Graham and Hannah Bennett.