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The second blog for The Yorker from the University of York Riding Club
The Championships, held on November 27, saw the first team claim seventh place with 259 points, falling just nine points short of promotion for a second consecutive year to division one.
The team did however thrash Roses rivals Lancaster, who finished 13th overall and will now be demoted to division three.
An equally impressive performance by York’s second team saw them finish eighth with 245 points, beating local rivals York St John and Varsity opponents Hull in the process. This sees them achieve the same placing that the first team gained two years ago, offering hope for the expanding club.
Building on their performances at the BUCS Short Course event two weekends ago, the swimmers smashed more club records and set new personal bests.
Toby Wong placed first in the 50 metre front crawl, setting a new club record of 24.14 seconds, and he also broke the previous fastest club time for 100m front crawl as he clocked 54.33 seconds to finish six.
Wong also set a fastest ever relay split of 23.79 seconds as he swam with Jon Beardsley, Jacob Shaw and Tomek Dobrzycki in the 4x50m front crawl relay, in which they finished six and set a record time of 1.40.93 minutes.
Wong, Beardsley and Dobrzycki then teamed up with Michael Tansini for the 4x50m medley and continued to smash records, clocking a fastest time of 1.54.4 minutes.
Just as successful were the women, as Alice Cary placed second in the 200m front crawl, with a club record of 2.10.49 minutes.
Cary then swam a fast leg of 27.18 seconds in the 4x50m relay, as she teamed up with Eloise Man, Kim Briscoe and Louise Highton, who clocked a speedy 28.24 seconds, to finish fourth and record a new club record of 1.56.13 minutes.
There were also notable performances from Cary in the 50m and 100m butterfly, as she finished second and fourth, and Highton placed third in the 100m front crawl, with both girls almost breaking club records. Jo Blair finished fifth twice in her 50m and 100m front crawl races.
Tansini clocked 1.02.07 minutes in the 100m butterfly, while Dobrzycki swam the 200m front crawl in 2.05.0, both nearly breaking club records, and men’s captain Chris Unsworth achieved a personal best time of 1.07.49 in the 100 individual medley.
Unsworth said: “I am absolutely blown away with what the team has achieved today. To nearly get promoted to the top division after only being promoted last year is incredible and to watch Lancaster get demoted at the same time makes it all the sweeter.
“This achievement is a credit to the hard work that our team members have put in in training and the amazing new group of freshers that have come into the club. We can only get better throughout the year and by the time Roses comes around, I am fully expecting a UYSWC whitewash.”
Club president Cesca Baguley added: “These are some really fantastic results, even improving on BUCS short course two weekends ago. Getting to beat Lancaster in such a big way is obviously a great achievement and the club is going from strength to strength.
“The team really pulled together and we had some great support. For our seconds to be in the position that our firsts were in two years ago is really a sign of how much we are improving year on year, and with the new pool, things can really only get better.”
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