This past weekend (16th-18th November) saw the annual Ulster Short Course Championships hosted by Swim Ulster take place at the Lagan Valley LeisurePlex.

Bangor had 24 athletes travel to Lisburn with medals and trophies on their mind; as they prepared to battle it out with the fastest swimmers in the country.

Friday night saw only one Bangor swimmer in action with Callum Dornan taking part in a gruelling 1500m battle and leaving with more than 20 seconds shaved off his PB.

We didn't have to wait long on Saturday morning for some exciting action with Ciaran McKee, Ben Riddell, Naeve Pountney, Rhys Green, Thomas Noble, Austin Williams and Amelia Urry all leaving everything they had in the water and making sure a number of PBs were coming back with them to Bangor. The mornings action didn't stop there with 3 Bangor swimmers being crowned Ulster Senior Champions; Emma Reid (50m Butterfly - 27.80), Curtis Coulter (50m Free - 22.97) and Rachel Bethel (400m Free - 4:18.02) all pipped the countries fastest to stand atop the podium, Sarah Davidson and Jaime Nichols also made finals before our junior team (N. Pountney, A. Urry, S. Wright and B. Riddell) clocked an impressive 1:54.56 in the 4x50m mixed Freestyle relay.

Bangor started where they had finished off in the afternoon with Adam Hewitt, Pearse Farren, Callum Slagter and Samuel Wright getting their first taste of individual action, all swimming impressively and clocking new PBs, the afternoon also saw our 4th Ulster Senior Champion as Jack McMillan touched at 4:20.48 to blow the rest of the competition away in the 400IM, Finals for Jaime Nichols, Ryan Lewis, Emma Reid and Adam Dickinson continued the exhilarating action before Curtis Coulter picked up his second Senior Championship of the meet; touching at 1:51.29 in the 200m Freestyle Final.

Sunday brought much of the same for Bangor as the juniors continued to clock PBs and Amelia Urry (200m Breaststroke) and David Thompson (50m Butterfly) were added to the list of finalists representing Bangor.

3 more Senior Champions were awarded to Bangor with Jack McMillan (200m Butterfly - 2:02.70), Emma Reid (100m Butterfly - 1:01.28) and Curtis Coulter (100m Freestyle - 50.49) bringing a fantastic end to an exciting meet.

Special thanks goes to all of the coaches for their hard work so far this season and everyone who was there in Lisburn to cheer on Bangor!

Adam Baxter