The last three weekends have been taken up with the County Championships. Some 190 events were swum in 14 galas. A total of 33 of the clubs swimmers achieved the entry times necessary and competed in 258 individual swims. The outcome of this gained them 135 medals, including 69 places in finals. A total of 124 personal best times were achieved, 14 club records broken and 4 meet best times set. The club achieved 5th place overall in the Top Club rankings and 4th place in the junior (13 years and under) rankings
The younger swimmers compete in the BAGCAT competition, where points are scored for their times and their best points over 4 or 5 categories are totalled to provide the overall best swimmer in each age band. A further 9 trophies were gained from this competition, two of them being first places. These went to Frances Merridan (1021 points) in the 9 year old girls and Charlotte Errington (3351 points) in the 13 year old girls. The other trophy winners were Ben Flaherty (2nd in 9 years boys), Sarah Hpa (2nd in 9 years girls), David Willcox (4th in 10 years boys), Adam Ingledew (4th in 11 years boys), Andrew Marshall (2nd in 12 years boys), Lisa Patrick (5th in 12 years girls) and Jennifer Dean (4th in 13 years girls).
Although Adam Ingledew didn’t achieve any first places he did break club records for his age (11 years) in the 50m butterfly, 200m backstroke, 200m and 400m freestyle. On the other hand Andrew Marshall took 5 first places in his age group in the 50m freestyle and backstroke and the 100m, 200m and 400m individual medley events and only broke two club records, being the 400m individual medley and freestyle. He was never off the podium in any of his events. Ben Flaherty won the boys 9 years 50m backstroke and Dean Tilley was first in the boys 15 years 50m freestyle and broke the club record for the 800m freestyle. Carl Adamson could only pick up medals for his backstroke, although it was at every distance, while Carl Harris picked up medals for all but his 50m backstroke. David Willcox reached the final of every event he entered, as did Louisa Prentice. Jonathan Fields did well in the shorter distance backstroke events to help his collection of medals, but managed to get himself disqualified in the 200m event.
In her only outing Kirsty Rice broke the girls 14 years 800m freestyle club record. Four other girls were best able to capitalise on their performances. Top ranking must go to Charlotte Errington, who set meet best times in coming in first in her age group (13 years) in the 50m (36.41s), 100m (1m 18.65s) and 200m (2m 48.92s) breaststroke. The 50m and 200m event times were new club records and she also won her age group 100m individual medley event. The other meet best time set by a club swimmer came from Frances Merridan in the 9 years 50m butterfly (44.20s). Frances also won the 50m backstroke and freestyle and 200m freestyle in her age group. Jennifer Dean couldn’t keep up with Charlotte in the breaststroke but made up for it in the other disciplines, taking first place in the 50m and 100m freestyle and 50m backstroke. Her times in the 100m freestyle and 200m backstroke were also new club records. Claire Evelyn won her age group events in the 50m freestyle and butterfly in new club record times and also won the 100m freestyle and individual medley. She also made the SKINS final, being one of the eight fastest girls in the county. Ros Bray reached the final of every one of the ten events she entered, but couldn’t quite take a win, being close on a couple of occasions. Lisa Patrick took the biggest haul of medals with 13, although there was only one podium place among them. Natasha Barton did well in the butterfly sprints and the longer distances in freestyle and backstroke for her haul of 7 medals. Sarah Hpa did well in the 9 years 200m events, but doesn’t yet seem to have the speed for the shorter distances.
The other swimmers gaining individual medals were Claire Holland (4), Daniel Heath (3), Emily Lynch (1), Hannah Howitt (1), Sarah Lynch (1), Vicky Scripps (2) and William Jones (4).
The 13/14 years girls managed two teams in the top six of their relays and the 9/10 years old boys and girls scored in all of their outings. The best relay result came from the second place achieved by the 11/12 years boys in the freestyle event.