Plymouth Leander Swimming

What a week National summer meet! 💥
​Three swimmers. Five medals. Twenty-two PBs.

​Our 3 girls from Devon absolutely tore up the pool this week, delivering a masterclass in racing, consistency, and big-meet composure.

​The Breakdown:
🥇 2 x Gold
🥈 1 x Silver
🥉 2 x Bronze

​The Numbers That Tell the Story:
- ​11 out of 13 events progressed through to Finals
​ - 22 out of 24 total swims were Personal Bests
- ​100% success rate on heat-to-final progression—going faster in every single final they swam!

​Medals are fantastic, but stepping up and dropping time when the pressure is highest in an evening final is what high-performance racing is all about.
​Huge congratulations to our three stars for a week of pure grit, relentless pacing, and exceptional ex*****on.

​⭐ Individual Spotlight: Isla’s Quadruple Sweep

A massive shoutout to Isla, who had a legendary week in the water! After a stunning Silver this evening in the 200 IM, she finished the meet with 4 medals across 4 different distances—taking a medal home in the 50m, 100m, 200m, and 400m events. Across 6 finals, she dropped an astounding 12 Personal Bests, proving her incredible versatility, endurance, and big-stage composure. Unstoppable! 👑🏊‍♀️

The penultimate day Summer meet is the final day of racing for Ava.

Shout to this girls resilience and strength. Her first race in this National window was 2 weeks ago. To sustain performance over that time, with highs and lows, an emotional roller coaster at times, a drive back down to Devon and back to Sheffield in the middle, is nothing short of amazing.

Finishing her week with 2 PB's today in the 50m Breaststroke and a 9th place in the final, was a nice way to round it off. She finishes this meet with 1 x 🥉, 3 finals from 4 races, 6 total PB swims - a stellar week to finish the season.

In the other PL final of the night, Isla followed up her morning PB in the 100m Free with a cracking swim in the final to go sub 60 for the first time ever (59.70) and finish 8th in her 5th appearance in the finals this week.

1 more day......1 more swim

Breaststroke girls take centre stage on day 4.

The 200m Breaststroke proved an excellent event for the PL girls. 'Little' Jess signed off her first National campaign in style. Finishing her week with 4 swims, 4 PB's, 2 finals, a 4th & 5th place and the desire to continue to progress at this level. The 200m was a great example of pacing and race IQ.

In the same event Ava had an extremely positive day and the bounce back race she was looking for. Dropping 1.5 seconds off her PB in her heat swim to secure a good lane for the final, she stepped up and went out strong with the race leaders to drop another 1.6 seconds in the final and finish 4th place.

Isla also raced earlier in the day and despite being just off her PB, she finished in 12th place, just outside the finals.

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The headline: Isla continues her medal haul with a bronze in the 50m fly.

However, the story of the day runs much deeper. With two 4th place finishes (for Jess & Isla) by the smallest of margins, it was looking like a tricky evening.

The real story is Isla dropping 3 seconds across the day on her 200m Free. Then 1 hour later taking bronze in the 50m fly with a time 0.7 quicker than her heat swim - first time sub 29.

The real story is Jess, in her first ever Nationals swim, overcoming nerves to swim a composed heat swim to drop 1.1 seconds and reach her first ever National final.

The real story is Jess then stepping up again and dropping another 1.5 seconds in a closely fought final - showing how to channel nerves into a performance advantage - all at the age of 14.

4th place is widely considered the most emotionally brutal spot on the board. But sometimes the scoreboard doesn't tell the whole story. While medals are wonderful, measuring success purely by metal misses the point of what we do here.

It's likely that the biggest lessons to take away come from the 4th places, the near misses, as much as the swims that go our way. 4th place forces athletes (and coaches) to separate their love for the sport from external validation.

Also racing in heats this morning was Ava finishing just outside her PB for 15th place in the 100 Brst. A tough couple of weeks of racing for her, with many positives to take away, and two more Breaststroke races to come.

Results:
50m fly - Isla - Bronze - 28.89 PB heat & final
100 Brst - Jess - 4th - 1:16.34 PB heats & final
200m Free - Isla - 4th - 2:09.04 - PB heat & final 100 Brst - Ava - 1:18.35 - 15th

Double Gold. Isla Doubles Down on Day 2!

​Isla’s momentum at the National Summer Meet is officially unstoppable. Building on an incredible opening performance, she stormed her way to a second Gold medal in as many days.

She laid down a statement early, dropping a fresh Personal Best to comfortably secure her spot in the evening final. Refusing to settle, she found another gear under the finals lights, shaving even more time off her morning swim to touch the wall first in 1:04.86 and claim back-to-back national titles.

​Dropping time in the morning and coming back even faster at night shows phenomenal race IQ, composure and grit.

With Ava back in tomorrow and Jess joining the fold, we'll see if the girls can continue this awesome momentum.

Double Medal Splash on Day 1!

​Day 1 of the National Summer Meet kicked off in style for the PL girls. Setting an explosive tone for the week ahead, Isla and Ava smashed through their previous personal bests to secure lanes in the final.

Not content at that, they both dropped further time in the final and Isla stormed ahead to capture a brilliant Gold medal. Not far behind in a thrilling finish, Ava sliced significant time off her best mark to touch the wall and claim a hard-earned Bronze.

With an 11 second drop (Isla) and 8 second drop.(Ava) across the day, it's fair reward for their determination and hard work.

Onto day 2

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