East Region Long Course Champs – Weekend 1
This year, East Region made the unprecedented decision to have the first weekend of their regional championships much earlier in the year. Instead of April, swimmers 15 and over would compete in March. This was so as not to be too close to exam time.
Thirty Hatfield swimmers made the trip up to Norwich to race. The weekend started off on Friday evening with the Mixed 800m free where we had four swimmers competing. Millie Richardson, Ever Ives, Oliver Fenwick and Daniel Belsey all had very strong races with each of them setting new PBs. Ever won her age group and Daniel came second in his.
Saturday consisted of three heats sessions followed by finals. The 400m free was swum as timed finals and Ever won gold again. In the male 400m IM, Sam Jeffrey had a strong performance to claim bronze. The Pink Army had a strong contingent of swimmers with many making it back to the evening’s finals session. Antonia Elias was our sole female 200m butterfly swimmer and it’s no easy feat to race that event twice in a day! Alexandra Nurney was our first medallist of the night winning gold in the 50m back. She was followed by Caitlin Hartley taking bronze in the 200m breaststroke. Soon after, Oliver Baskerville claimed gold in the 200m backstroke. Alexandra added to her haul on the night by also winning the 15 year-old 50m free with Ever Ives winning the very next final in the next age group up. Lucas Hartley rounded off the night with a bronze in the open 50m free.
We had two relays taking on the rest of the region. Niccolo Camilotti, Oliver Fenwick, Rufus Kellie and K-ets Yah Khai went in the 14/16yrs 400m free relay and came in a respectable fifth place. For the 17/over category, we had Liam Rumball, Daniel Belsey, Ben Davison and Lucas Hartley who finished fourth. Regional relay results are used to determine qualification to Nationals so they will now have to wait and see whether the times they posted are fast enough to qualify.
Sunday saw the team back at the pool for another three sessions of heats with swimmers again vying to qualify for the evening’s finals. Again, the 400m free was swum in the heats sessions. Oliver F brought home the bronze in his age group while Daniel B came home with silver. Our first swimmer that night was Daniel Williams in the 200m butterfly. Ever Ives swam next and took bronze in the 100m fly followed by Rufus Kellie in the 50m back. The next finalists were Caitlin Hartley and Ashley Ransome both in the 17/over 100m breaststroke where Ashley won gold. Louise Fiddes also won gold in the multi-classification category. The sprinters took to the pool next with Rufus in the 50m freestyle as well as both Lucas and Liam in the older age group. Alexandra won a silver medal in the 100m free with Ever taking the victory in her category.
The weekend ended with relays again and the male medley team of Oliver Baskerville, Sam Jeffrey, Daniel Williams and Lucas Hartley finished in fourth place. The female freestyle team of Alexandra Nurney, Honor Beverstock, Antonia Elias and Ever Ives came third in a very close and exciting finish to the weekend.
