Silver, bronze and PBs for swimmers

Lauren Hew and Eddie Weber are all smiles after their medals on the opening day.

Lauren Hew and Eddie Weber won the first swimming medals on Monday (25 June) for the Cayman Islands at the 17th NatWest Island Games in the Swedish island of Gotland, while team members achieved four personal best times.

Weber finished third fastest in the men’s 1500m freestyle in 16 minutes, 14.99 seconds behind a pair of swimmers from the Faroe Islands to win a bronze. Jonathan Key was fourth (16:51.14).

Later in the evening, it was Hew’s turn to bring home some hardware in the women’s 200m freestyle.  Swimming in lane two, Hew challenged Jersey’s Gemma Atherley for much of the race but fell back towards the end. She finished second, earning a silver medal for her 2:03.61 performance and improving on the 2:05.65 which had her third fastest in the preliminaries.

During the morning session, Matthew Somerville, Ella Plunkett and Weber each had personal best times at the five-lane 25-metre pool at the Solbergabadet indoor facility in the city of Visby.

Somerville had a pair of PBs. He was ninth fastest out of 17 entries in the men’s 50m backstroke with a time of 28.92 seconds. Another PB came in the men’s 200m individual medley when he was 10th fastest in 2:17.10. Weber also set a new PB in that event with 2:12.09 for a sixth-place finish. Only the top five moved on to the final because of the limited number of lanes in the facility.

Plunkett achieved a personal best time in the women’s 50m breaststroke with 35.83 seconds and was 14th out of 21 entries.

Here’s a full breakdown of the team’s performance:

**Session 1, Prelims qualifying heats, top 5 go through to the Final:-

Men’s 200 Fly
Rory Barrett | Seed time 2:08.77 | Qualifying Time 2:11.36 – 6th Place
out of 13 entries.

Women’s 100 Fly
Lauren Hew | Seed time 1:04.12 | Qualifying Time 1:05.46  – 7th Place
out of 21 entries.

Women’s 50 Breast
Ella Plunkett | Seed time 36.19 | Qualifying Time 35.83 – 14th out of
21 entries (personal best time).

Men’s 50 Back
Matthew Somerville | Seed time 29.59 | Qualifying Time 28.92 – 9th out
of 17 entries (personal best time).

Women’s 200 Free
Lauren Hew | Seed time 2:02.78 | Qualifying Time 2:05.65 – 3rd out of
21 entries, Qualified for final.

Men’s 200 IM
Eddie Weber | Seed time 2:16.79 | Qualifying Time 2:12.09 – 6th
(personal best time)
Matthew Somerville | Seed time 2:24.73 | Qualifying Time 2:17.10 –
10th (personal best time).

Men’s 4X50m Medley
Matthew Somerville,  Edward Weber IV,  Rory Barrett , Jonathan Key |
Qualifying Time 1:51.91 – 6th Place out of 17 entries.

**Session 2, Finals:-

Men’s 1500 Free
Eddie Weber | Seed time 16:06.98 | Timed Finals | 16:14.99 – 3rd Place
Bronze Medal.
Jonathan Key | Seed time 16:43.09 | Timed Finals | 16:51.14 – 4th Place.

Women’s 200 Free
Lauren Hew | Seed time 2:02.78 | 2:03.61 – 2nd Place, Silver Medal.

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.