15 and Over South East Regional Championships 2018

Saturday 5^th May

On the sunniest day of the year to date, ten of our 15 and over regional qualifying swimmers went to High Wycombe!

Our first swimmer to race was Matthew O’Sullivan in the boys 50m breaststroke. His superb start gave him the advantage and he won the heat with a PB of 1.30 seconds. This meant he made the final as the 7^th fastest 15 year old!

Cameron White and Seb Leather soon followed in the 50 breast with Cam making the 16 year old final too!

Niamh Kennedy represented the club in the girls 50 butterfly. She had a great swim and achieved a PB with 32.14 secs!

Next saw Emily Pilgrim in the 200 backstroke and Morgan Portat in the 100 backstroke. They also put in good swims!

Finally in this session, Maddie Harris & Eve Perry raced in the 100 free. Maddie swam a solid 1.28.06 and gained 5^th place in the Multi-Classification event.  Eve had a comfortable swim of 1.00.48 and gained a place in the final as 4^th fastest 16 year old!

In the next session Emily and Niamh were both up in the 50 backstroke. They both swam well. Although marginally off their PB’s, their great starts and underwater puts them in good stead for future backstroke events!

Next up were Matthew O’ Sullivan, Seb Leather, Rory Burdin and Glen Melson in the boys/mens 50 free! Matthew was superb again and with a PB of 26.07 secs gained another place in a final!  Rory & Glen also gained a place in the final qualifying as 3^rd and 4^th fastest in the 17 and over category.

Maddie Harris was up next again in the 100 breaststroke. She swam close to her PB and gained another 5^th place in the Multi-Classification Event.

Finally, Cam and Matthew raced the boys 100 breaststroke. Matthew swam a 1.13.99 and Cam achieved a place in the 16 year old final with a 1.11.15.

Roll on to the last session of the day – The Finals!

In the boys 50 breaststroke, Matthew and Cameron narrowly missed out on the medals. Matthew gained 5^th place in the 15 year olds, with only 0.14 seconds separating 2^nd to 6^th place. Cameron achieved 4^th place in the 16 year olds and missed a medal by 0.04 seconds!

Eve was next to race in the 16 year olds 100 free final. Starting as 4^th fastest, she turned in 3^rd place at 50m and swam sub 1 minute to take the silver medal! Fantastic achievement!!

Rory and Glen were the last EPSC finalist swimmers of the day. The 50m free 17 & over category saw Rory win 3^rd place with 24.00 seconds and Glen 4^th place with 24.12.

All in all, a day of fabulous strong swims by all our competitors, many PB’s, finalists and medallists!

Day 2 - Sunday 6^th May

After a long Saturday, most of our swimmers were back in the pool again at High Wycombe on Sunday!

Emily, Maddie, Niamh and Eve started the day in the 50 freestyle. All four put in good strong swims and although Emily and Niamh were just off their PB’s, Niamh came 10^th and Maddie gained a 3 second Long Course PB and a respectable 5^th place in the Multi-Class Event. Eve continued her fabulous freestyle weekend and gained another place in the 16 year old final with a 28.08 seconds swim!

Matthew O’Sullivan also continued his weekend of PB’s and swam a 28.30 second 50 fly.

Cameron swam the 200 back and came a very promising 9^th place.

Emily and Maddie were swimming again in the female 100 backstroke along with Clara Nutting. Emily swam a season’s best LC time of 1.10.77 and Clara gained a place in the 17 & Over final with a 1.07.60. Maddie swam a 1.42.07 and gained a 4^th place in the Multi-Class Event!

Glen swam next in the 100 freestyle and was just off his Long Course PB! Pretty good as many of the swimmers in his category (17 & over) were 7 years younger than him!! Experience wins the day!

Finally, Cameron swam again in the 200 IM – his 4^th regional event! He put in another solid swim.

The Finals!

Eve was here again and went into the 100 free final as 6^th fastest! She was narrowly beaten into 4^th place by 0.02 seconds in an exciting final!

Day 3 – Bank Holiday Monday!

On the expectation of the hottest Bank Holiday in history, 4 of our swimmers and Stuart were in High Wycombe again for the final day of regionals!

Up first was Morgan Portat in the 50 backstroke. Unfortunately he was disqualified for not breaking the surface before the 15m mark! It was a close call! Otherwise, a pretty impressive length of backstroke!

Next was Cameron White in the 200 breast. He narrowly missed the final coming in 10^th place.

Emily and Eve were the final two to swim in the girls 200 freestyle. Emily swam a Long Course PB and Eve yet again made her 3^rd final as the 4^th fastest qualifier!

In the 200 Free Final – Eve swam a respectable 2.12.62 in the final and gained a 5^th place!

Overall, a very successful, fun weekend! For a small club, we were competing against some of the big guns of swimming - huge clubs such as Portsmouth, Guildford, Wycombe and Oxford! We held our own and in many events we had 2 or 3 swimmers qualify in one age group which is an excellent achievement in itself!

 The 15 & Over Regional Championships only take the top 24 for each age group in the 50m races , top 17 in the 100m  & 200m races and top 10-12 in the 400m + events from the whole of the South East! So our swimmers (and coaches) should be extremely proud of themselves to even qualify for this Championships irrespective of winning a medal or not! Many of our swimmers had qualified for up to 5 events as well!

Also, not forgetting Brigit Wilson, who unfortunately due to injury had to withdraw from the championships. We wish her a speedy recovery.

Finally, a big thanks to Head Coach Stuart for 3 full days poolside supporting all the swimmers!