Tom Competes with the Best in Europe Well done to Tom Cole, who has just arrived home after competing in the 2nd DSISO Down Syndrome Europeans Swimming Championships in Estarreja Portugal. The Competition should have been over 5 days but on arriving in Portugal it was found that it had been changed to 4 days, which was not good news for Tom. He already had a difficult competition as it was, with all his events being either 200m 400m 800m, plus 4 relays. The competition started on the 19th Sept with an early start - the bus arriving at the hotel at 7.30am, heats in the mornings and finals late afternoon, with the medal ceremony taking place between the final races. DAY ONE Tom got off to a good start with the 400m Free with me holding my breathe (as in training he did not always manage to count to 16) but he did a brilliant swim, narrowly missing gold by a finger nail width, coming away with the Silver and a 4 second Pb. Next was the 400 Ind Medley again Tom was swimming well getting another Silver medal. The morning session finished with the 4 x 100 Free Relay Tom doing the 2nd leg Gt Britain came in Bronze position and Tom doing the fastest time in the team and beating his personal best time for 100Free. DAY TWO This was Toms hardest day he had the 200m Butterfly first, this I would say was his most difficult event, but he was very focused, remembering all that Pat had told him in his lessons, and training with WSSC he came in 4th position getting a 6.24sec pb. Without much rest time he was soon in the water again for the 800m Free where he had another good swim coming in Silver Medal position. He then had to go straight to the marshalling area for the 4 x 50 Medley Relay, Tom on the Breaststroke. GB got another Bronze. It had been a very long day, Tom was very tired, but after an early night he was up 6.30am ready to compete on DAY THREE He had 4 events, first the 4 x 25m Relay GB getting Gold. In the heat for the 200 Ind Medley he got thorough to the final, but his time was 2 secs slower than his entered time of 3.11.73. Unfortunately in the 200m Back he got DQ as he failed to touch the wall on his last turn, but he put the disappointment behind him, and in the final for the 200m Ind Medley did a impressive time of 3.08.22 which was a pb and another Silver Medal. The day finished with the 4 x 100 Medley Relay, Tom on the Breaststroke again and again the team got Bronze. DAY FOUR He had the 200m Free and 4 x 50 Free Relay, by this time he was really feeling it, he said his arms and legs were stiff, but like all the other events he kept focused. The 200m Free he got thorough to the final, and in the relay, did the fastest time he had ever done getting a 2sec pb on his 50m length, and the team won Bronze again. In the final of the 200m Free he came in 3rd getting another Bronze Medal. Tom swam better than both Pat and myself thought possible, as the past 10 months have been a difficult time for Tom, he came back from the Downs Worlds in Italy in November with a Hernia after having the op in late January his training had to be put on hold while he recovered and missing even a few weeks it has taken him quite awhile to regain his fitness, Tom proved to me, that all the hard work Pat puts into him, he values although she wasn’t with us, he remembers all what she has taught him, I certainly found that out on the 4 x 50m Free Relay, the GB coach had said it was nothing against Tom, as he performed the best of all the GB Team but when asked by another parent how he thought the team would do on the Relay he said he didn’t know as Tom would be the weakest link as he was a long distance swimmer and the other 3 were sprinters, and you normally have 50m or 100m swimmers in this relay, but actually Tom was 2 and 3 secs faster than the other 3 swimmers and that was because Pat had said in relays over 2 lengths you keep your head down and do as little breathing as possible and that’s just what he did. After his success in Portugal he is now really focused and working hard to get his times down even further to get in Gold Position in Mexico. Apart from the 1500m Free and his 200m Back he has all the times needed to be in the GB Team that go to Mexico next November. Over the next 2 to 3 months hoping to get them
Posted on: Sun, 06 Oct 2013 07:44:56 +0000