At the weekend the club travelled to Leighton Buzzard to compete in the final round of the Chiltern League. This league, for the younger swimmers, saw the club acquit itself admirably and came away as the winners, with Wellingborough in second place. This gained the club their second shield in two weeks.

The boys under 15 years relay team (Carl Adamson, Daniel Heath, Kieran Woods and Andrew Marshall) won both the freestyle and medley events in club record times. The other boys relay teams won all of their outings, with the one downside being the under 11 years medley squad who were ‘too fast’, being inside the limiting time, so scoring no points. The girls teams played their part and added the medley events in all age groups, with the under 11 years also gaining the freestyle event.

The individual events saw 16 personal best times set. Four of these were inside the limiting times, but proved personal triumphs for Stephen Willcox in the under 11 years backstroke and breaststroke, Hannah Wilson in the under 13 years backstroke and Sarah Hpa in the under 11 years breaststroke. Sarah was also ‘to fast’ in her backstroke event albeit outside her personal best time.

Personal best times and first places in the event were achieved by Alison Reynolds in the open age group freestyle, Jonathan Fields in the open butterfly, Matthew Leydon in the under 13 years butterfly and Alice Butler in the under 13 years freestyle. In the backstroke Marie Patrick beat her previous best, while in the breaststroke Claire Holland (under 13 years), Matthew Leydon (under 15 years) and Sasha Woods (open) swam their fastest ever. The remaining personal best times were set in the freestyle events, coming from Eve Butler (under 11 years), Thomas Moore (under 13 years), David Wilcox (under 15 years) and Jo Medrek (open).

Individual wins were also achieved by Edward Baxter (under 11 years) in the freestyle, Kieran Woods (under 15 years) in the backstroke and Rachel Hpa (under 15 years) in the breaststroke.

This type of gala shows the club’s strength in depth at the younger end of the age groups and coach Les Woods’s skill in choosing the right swimmer for the event to keep within the limiting times.