Peri Sprints, Home Counties & Chiltern League

The club has had three busy weekends leading up to the county championships, giving mixed fortunes.

A team of 24 swimmers travelled to Rugby to compete in the Peri Sprint Meet. Between them they undertook 85 swims and from them set 47 new personal best times. Wins in their respective age groups came from Alice Butler and Jennifer Dean in the butterfly, Jennifer Dean and Rosalind Bray in the backstroke, Hannah Wilson, Lisa Patrick and Charlotte Errington in the breaststroke and Jennifer Dean and Jonathan Fields in the freestyle. Charlote Errington and Rosalind Bray also won their individual medley events.

A visit to Leighton Buzzard for the second round of the Home Counties League saw little result with the team coming in fourth place with less than half the points of winners Kettering. Despite this the team was swimming well, setting 13 personal best times in their efforts. The single win of the evening came from Charlotte Errington in the 100m breaststroke. Personal best times were set by Callum Tierney and Jake and Joe Medrek in the backstroke and breaststroke proved to be successful for Claire Holland, George Hill and Hannah Wilson. The discipline of the evening proved to be the butterfly with personal best times being set by Harry Simpson, Jessica Fuins, Daniel Heath, Robyn Varley and Sarah Hpa. Daniel Heath also set a new personal best time in the freestyle as did Natasha Lines.

The visit to Wellingborough for the second round of the Chiltern League proved to be more successful with the team winning, comfortably ahead of the hosts Rushden. This being a timed gala the team fared better than the rest and only lost out in four events, being faster than the cut-off time. Two of them were in the relay events. Evie Butler, in setting a new personal best time, was too fast in the 50m breaststroke as was Kirsty Rice in the 100m individual medley, also setting a new personal best time. Wins and new personal best times were achieved by Alison Reynolds, Rachel Bull and Alice Butler, all in the freestyle events. Further personal best times were set by Yasmin Bull, Michaela Yates and Andrew Barton in the freestyle events while Chloe Errington, Stephen Willcox and Matthew Reynolds achieved theirs in the backstroke events. The team’s points tally was boosted further by wins from the girls and boys under 13 years relay teams in both freestyle and medley. The under 15 years girls won their medley team race as did the girls open age group in the freestyle event. The total was further enhanced by individual wins from Hannah Wilson in the breaststroke and Marie Patrick, David Willcox, Kirsty Rice and Harry Simpson in the butterfly events.