Last week the top domestic age-grouped swimming competition took place at Ponds Forge International Sports Centre in Sheffield as the best swimmers from all over Britain, representing over 300 clubs, competed at the British Summer Championships.
The top 24 ranked swimmers in each event were invited to attend and Emma Price, of Sedgefield 75 swimming club in Newton Aycliffe, had qualified for six events during the qualifying window earlier this year. She was also selected to represent Northumberland and Durham Swimming Association in two team relay events.
She kicked off the competition on Friday 22nd with a 4 x 200m freestyle team race where she teamed up with 16-year-old swimmers from Sunderland, Stockton and Morpeth, despite being only 14, and swam the third leg beating her own 200m freestyle PB by two seconds and moving the team up from eighth to fifth place. The team just missed out on a medal, finishing in fourth place.
200m freestyle was her first individual race and she matched her time from Friday to qualify for the final where she finished fifth. She also made the final of the 400m individual medley and finished ninth.
It was 800m freestyle on Sunday which was to be decided by a single heat swim. Emma pushed herself very hard and swam 9:19, 8.5 seconds faster than her PB and it left her in first place with three swimmers to come. Unfortunately the three swimmers beat the time and Emma finished fourth again.
Wednesday and it was now 400m freestyle and 200m individual medley. Emma dominated her 400 free heat from start to finish beating her PB by over six seconds to qualify fourth fastest for the final. In the final, she went faster again but missed out on bronze by less than a second.
On the final day, Emma swam 100m butterfly and in 4 x 100m freestyle team relay. The same team that had swam the 200m relay broke four minutes in qualifying for the final, Emma swimming a 60.17 second leg, more than a second faster than her 100m freestyle PB. In the final, Emma took the first leg but the team were unable to improve on their heat time and finished eighth.
Although slightly frustrating to finish fourth three times, a superb performance to be this highly ranked in the whole of Britain and a credit to the coaching available at the town’s swimming club, www.sedgefield75.com