The first weekend in November saw the 2022 regional short course (25m pool) championships take place across the country. Regional championships is the next level up after county level and require strict qualifying times to be met in order to participate.
The region in question for Sedgefield 75 Swimming Club is the North East region which includes the Tyne Tees and Yorkshire areas. The competition was held at Ponds Forge in Sheffield in a 50m pool split into two 25m pools so that two competitions could take place simultaneously, those being an age-grouped competition and an open age competition for older swimmers.
Making their debuts in championship swimming were Aviana Wilson and Jessica Bell in the age groups. Jessica swam in seven events over the weekend, her highlights being a 2 seconds PB in 50m butterfly, 3.8 seconds in 100m butterfly, 4.5 seconds in 200m breaststroke and over 6 seconds in an excellent 200m individual medley. Her top placing was 6th, in a large field, in the 100m fly.
Aviana swam in three events: 50m backstroke, 100m individual medley and 50m freestyle. She set PB’s in two of them, 0.53 seconds in the 50m free and a superb 1.5 seconds in the medley.
Filip also did seven events in the age groups and set new bests in six of them, the largest being almost 3 seconds from his 200m backstroke time, a swim that earned him the gold medal for 13-year-old boys. Filip picked up a further three medals, silvers in 50m and 100m backstroke and bronze in 50m butterfly, also setting club records in the 50m back and fly.
Swimming in the open youth (16 & under), for the first time, were Alex Boyer and Emma Price. Alex, 15, swam a quality 17:42 minutes for his 1500m freestyle. Emma, 14, swam four freestyle events, making the final in 200m before pulling out a massive 14 seconds PB club record in 800m to take a surprise gold ahead of her older rivals. She set another club record in qualifying for the 400m final where she broke it again, taking bronze.
Full results and more information on competitive swimming is available at:
www.sedgefield75.com