Bishop’s Stortford Swimming Club’s 2026 County Championships campaign got off to a strong start on Saturday 10th January, where we kicked things off at Westminster Lodge in St Albans, with the Mixed 800m Freestyle event – 32 lengths of the pool.
BSSC was well represented with swimmers across the age groups, comprising of:
- Taras Boiko, 13 years
- Harrison Dodwell, 13 years
- Noah Conroy, 14 years
- Guy Spearman-Baines, 14 years
- Summer Miller, 14 years
- Benjamin Palmer, 15 years
- Dylan Davenport, 16/Over
- Elizabeth Balaam, 16/over
The squad secured three medals:
- Summer Miller – gold, with a time of 9:46.26 (plus bronze in the Junior Championship)
- Benjamin Palmer – silver, with a time of 9:09.64 (plus silver in the Junior Championship)
- Guy Spearman-Baines – bronze, with a time of 9:48.53
All of the above swims were personal bests, and qualified all three swimmers for the upcoming East Region Long Course Championships in the Spring.
Weekend One also saw the start of the Relay events, which resulted in two top finishes for BSSC:
- Open/Male 10-13 Freestyle Relay Team – Harrison Dodwell, Jeremy Cox, Luca Tse and Taras Boiko
- Mixed 10-15 Freestyle Relay Team – Benjamin Palmer, Zackary Haslett-Fossey, Summer Miller and Edie Foster.
As well as winning gold, both Relay teams broke County Championships Best Time records, held since 2020.
Sixty-nine BSSC swimmers qualified for this year’s Championships, an increase on last year’s 60 swimmers and the Club’s highest number of qualifiers yet.
We will be back in action the weekend of 17th and 18th January, including relays for the 13/Unders and 15/Unders and mix of 400m and 100m events.
