Bishop's Stortford Swimming Club
Affiliated to Swim England East Region
HUGE congratulations to all our swimmers who have been invited to compete at the British Swimming Summer Championships in Sheffield at the end of July. The top 24 in Britain are invited for each event/age group, so this is an achievement to be celebrated!
Having smashed multiple short course (25m pool) British and European records in March 2022, BSSC Masters swimmer Alyson Fordham took on a long course (50m pool) record breaking challenge with gusto at the recent British Masters Championships 2022. The event held in Aberdeen brought together the best Masters swimmers across the three Home Nations along with International visitors, for the first time in three years.
Freestyle specialist Alyson dominated the 65-69 year old category, taking Gold in the 50m, 100m, 200m and 400m events. Her gold medal winning 50m freestyle time of 31.13 seconds was a British and European record, the 100m (1:10.53) and 200m (2:43.59) results were both British records and the 400m (5:47.04) time was an East Region record.
Alyson now has her sights set on the Swim England Masters National Championships in October, which are the highlight of the national Masters short course calendar.
After a gap of two years, the Swim England East Region Long Course Championships returned in 2022, with two full weekends of exhilarating competition! Twenty nine BSSC swimmers qualified to compete against the top swimmers from the six eastern Counties of England – Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk, Suffolk.
For many of these swimmers, it was their first opportunity to compete at this Regional level and they all dug deep and stepped up to the occasion, ensuring BSSC finished 15th out of more than 40 clubs and the 2nd ranked Hertfordshire club. Individually the swimmers secured many personal bests, had 32 top eight finishes and also brought home eight medals:
Congratulations to all our swimmers who took part in these Championships. We look forward to celebrating many more successes resulting from all the hard work you put into training.
Full list of swimmers:
Early April 2022, the Swim England East Region organised a new development competition at the UEA pool in Norwich. It ran with the same age groups as the main East Region championship competition and offered swims to those just shy of the championship qualifying times / entry standards. Seven Bishop’s Stortford Swimming Club members met the consideration times and joined swimmers from over sixty clubs for two exhilarating days of racing.
Every swimmer achieved personal best times and Molly, Ella, George and Emma secured six medals (3 Gold, 3 Silver) and multiple top eight finishes. Congratulations to all swimmers on their achievements, especially Ella, George and Molly who also reached the qualifying standards for the main East Region Championships.
BSSC Swimmers: Lois Fields (11 Yrs); Meha Patel, Molly Greatbatch (12 Yrs); Ella Greatbatch (14 Yrs); George Grimwood (15 Yrs); Emma Fields (16 Yrs).
Top Eight Finishes:
Top Eight Finishes:
Molly Greatbatch: Gold 200m IM, 4th 50m Backstroke
Ella Greatbatch: Gold 400m IM, Silver 50m Back
George Grimwood: Gold 50m Butterfly, Silver 100m Freestyle, 6th 100m Backstroke
Emma Fields: Silver 200m Freestyle, 4th 50m Backstroke
Five events, five finals, seven PBs and three medals at a National level competition! BSSC Elites swimmer Kirsty Neill recently headed north of the border to the Scottish National Age Group championships (SNAGS), the largest event in the Scottish National swimming calendar that pre-pandemic attracted over 1000 athletes from across the UK and beyond. After a three year hiatus, the 2022 competition was held at the Tollcross International Swimming Centre in Glasgow and Kirsty qualified for five events in the 15 year age group: 50/100/200m Breaststroke, 200m Individual Medley and 400m Freestyle.
Day one of the competition and Kirsty secured a place in the 50m Breaststroke final with a great personal best (PB) time and broke her own PB in the final that evening to get Bronze.
Next up was Kirsty’s favourite race, the 200m Breaststroke. In qualifying she was narrowly beaten into second place, but after some text conversations with her BSSC coach, Mathieu Leroy, who was watching on the YouTube live stream back in Stortford, she absolutely stormed to Gold and a new PB in the final. Having been nearly 2.5 seconds behind the leader at the turn for the final length, the commentary on the live feed during her winning comeback was hugely entertaining!
“Well, I did not see that coming at all”
“She should not be able to do that – it should not be possible”
“Came back like a train”
Days three and four there were more two more events, two more finals and four more PBs, resulting in 6th in the 400m Freestyle and 4th in the 200m IM.
The final day of the competition was another breaststroke day, this time the 100m and another rivalry with the swimmer she beat into second in the 200m Breaststroke. Unfortunately, this time it was Kirsty’s turn to lose out, but she still secured a superb Silver medal.
Congratulations to Kirsty for all her performances (and the family for the great support!), but especially the 200m Breaststroke swim that makes her the fastest 15 year old in Britain.
