A Record Breaking Winter Nationals for Hatfield
From the 11th to 14th of December, some of Hatfield’s top senior swimmer’s took to the water at Pond’s Forge in Sheffield for the Swim England National Championships. This meet is the culmination of the short course season and six swimmers currently training with us plus two of our away swimmers managed to achieve the tough time standards and qualify this year.
An incredible 100% of our swimmers achieved PB’s at this meet, a feat we cannot remember happening in recent history. Not only that, we had multiple finals swims and also new club records set. It was an extremely successful championships for the Pink Army!
The first day began with Alexandra swimming a PB in her first Winter Nationals event, the 100m free. She was followed soon after by Daniel, also swimming a PB and almost creeping under the elusive 4 minute mark in the 400m free. Caitlin and Ashley followed in quick succession, both competing in the 100m breaststroke and qualifying for the B and A finals respectively. Both girls had waited two years to achieve PB’s in this event and Ashley’s time set a new club record. Our final swimmer was Oliver who swam a big PB to get him into the Junior final, almost dipping under the 2 minute barrier.
Having three swimmer’s in the finals is a fantastic achievement for a small club and each of them performed well being in touching distance of the times they set in the heats.
Day two saw Daniel kick us off in the 200m free with yet another PB! Alexandra was next with two events, the 100m backstroke and 50m free. She achieved another PB in the backstroke and was very close in the free. Oliver had the 50m back next and scraped under his best time with a speedy swim. Our breaststrokers were last to race in this session with the 50m breast. Caitlin finally set a PB faster than her 50 split in the 100! Ashley, in her favoured event, flew into the A final setting a new club record in the process!
Our only finalist on the night, Ashley competed in the 50m breaststroke where she impressively improved on her earlier time, resetting the club record again!
On the 3rd day of the competition, Caitlin, in the 200m breaststroke, was our first swimmer to race. With a great heat swim and her fastest time in three years, she progressed to the A final. Ever was next up and had a fantastic 200m free in a new lifetime best. Oliver competed in the 100m backstroke, knocking more time off his previous best and complete a hattrick of PB’s in his events. Alexandra rounded off the morning’s swims with a great 50m butterfly swim and also the 100m IM. Both were new PB’s for her too.
Our lone finalist of the evening, Caitlin swam a fantastic race in her fastest time for three years to earn herself a new PB and club record.
On the final day of competition, we had 2 swimmers left to race. Ever swam the 200m free and Daniel took on the longer 800m free. Both raced hard but were just outside their best times.
Our two away swimmers, Charlotte and Lucas also had good Champs swims. Charlotte, swimming for Surrey University, swam the 50m breaststroke (32.94) just a few 100ths outside her PB as was her 50m fly (28.02). Her 100m fly (1:02.42) and 100IM (1:04.33) were also good swims just a couple of tenths outside her PB’s. She also had to compete in a swim off for a B finals place in the IM, losing out by a whisker.
Lucas had a very successful meet representing the University of Birmingham. He raced in the 50m fly (24.75) and 100IM (57.31) on the first day achieving big PB’s in both. Day 3 he tackled the 50m free (22.80) and 100m fly (55.63), again in lifetime bests. On the final day he swam the 100m free (50.87) and 50m breast (29.00), both in PB’s.
Overall, it was a fantastic competition with amazing results for our swimmers. Their hard work and dedication paid off with fantastic results. Well done to all of them!