Hatfield’s Top Swimmers Head to Sheffield

The Aquatics GB Next Gen Championships are heading to Ponds Forge this week and a number of Hatfield swimmers will be there ready to compete against some of the best swimmers in their age groups. The competition will run from 16th-22nd July bringing with it seven jam-packed days of great swimming as well as multiclassification para-swimming racing. There will also be exciting relays spread over the week.

Entry to the Next Gen Summer Champs are by invitation only and determined by long course swims in the three month qualifying window. There are a strict number of athletes invited for each age group so qualifying is very difficult. For most events (excluding distance ones where fewer invites are sent) just 20 swimmers are invited in the 13/14 age group, 24 each in the one year age bands of 15, 16, 17 and 18 years and then only 20 in the 19+ age group. There are heats in the morning followed by finals later in the day. For relay qualification, times are recorded during Regional competitions and the top 30 teams are then invited to enter.

Friday will be the first day of racing for Hatfield. We have Oliver Baskerville in the 50m backstroke and Ashley Ransome in the 50m breaststroke.

On Saturday, all our interest will be in one event. Both Caitlin Hartley and Ashley Ransome will be taking on the 100m breaststroke this day.

Sunday will be slightly busier as we have two individual representatives with Daniel Belsey racing the 400m free and Oliver returning for the 100m backstroke. Slightly later on, our first relay will take to the water in the men’s 4x200m free relay. Our team is Oliver Baskerville, K-ets Yah Khai, Oliver Fenwick and Daniel Belsey.

On Monday, the Pink Army only have one swimmer. Caitlin will be racing the 200m breaststroke. Tuesday also has only one swimmer with Oliver swimming the 200m backstroke.

The final day will see Daniel competing in the 200m free followed by our women’s 4x100m medley relay in the later session. The team that qualified at regionals was Camille Vannier, Caitlin Hartley, Ever Ives and Katie Jeffrey. Sadly, Ever is injured and cannot swim but we are very fortunate that Honor Beverstock will be stepping up for the team and replacing her on the butterfly leg.

In other interest for the Pink Army, we have a couple of away University swimmers also competing at the meet. Charlotte Williams is currently swimming for the University of Surrey and will race the 50m and 100m butterfly. Lucas Hartley will also be competing in the University of Birmingham’s 4x100m freestyle A team.

Best of luck to all our swimmers! It will be an exciting competition and Hatfield are very proud of all our qualifiers.

Live results will be available here https://results.swimming.org/swimming/results/2026/agbnextgen/

You can also follow all the live action on the Aquatics GB YouTube channel