Emma Harvey at her BEST at swim meet

The Bermuda Amateur Swimming Association Best of BEST meet saw Emma Harvey steal the show with a stunning age-group national record in the 200m Butterfly.

Harbour Swim Club’s competitors recorded 116 personal best times, with the most notable that of Harvey who, having broken the previous national record in the prior meet by a second, demolished her own national record by 9.43 seconds.

Head coach Shona Palmer said in a press release: “Emma was swimming the event this year only for the second time and all the coaches are pleased with the level of improvement, but are also extremely confident there is a lot more improvement to come.”

The other standout swims for Harbour included Peter Kiernan in the 100 Freestyle for an A time and his improvements across all events in the 2013-14 season are impressive. Nick Brando also continued his rapid recent improvement.

Meanwhile, National Coach and Sharks Swim Club head coach Ben Smith was pleased with how his swimmer reacted to the pressure of the meet being the last chance to reach the qualifying mark for the Carifta Championships.

And while no-one was able to add themselves to the squad, there were a number of impressive performances.

Smith said in a press release: “We were very happy with the overall results for this meet.  Most swimmers were able to reach near personal best if not exceed personal best times, which is a good indicator that the training through the winter has been successful. 

“This meet being the last qualifier for Carifta meant that there was added pressure and tension in the pool which saw fast swims but no added qualifiers by the end of the session. 

“Aaron Rego and Jessie Thomas came with one tenth of a second from hitting their second qualifying time for Carifta, which was agonizing as they have worked so hard to reach their goal for the season.  We are proud of all the swimmers and their efforts and look forward to continued success this season.”

At the development meet that followed, Casey Morris achieved her B time in the 100m breaststroke, which will now allow her to compete in BOB 2.

Robert Thomas and Kent Simmons competed for the first time in a standard level meet and did an admirable job with their swims.

Casey, Robert and Kent now join Blake Oliveira, Gabby Pitman, Allie Riihilouma and Elena Munoz in representing Sharks in the standard level meets.