With the early November weather turning colder, nineteen BSSC swimmers headed to Luton for the 2021 Swim England East Region Short Course Championships. This 3-day Winter competition gives the best in the six East Region Counties the opportunity to race in a 25m pool to find the fastest swimmers and maybe even qualify for the Winter National Championships. There’s just one set of qualifying times for Men and Women and one open age group for each event, so super speedy 12 year old girls and 14 year old boys could end up competing against 20+ year olds! For many of the BSSC swimmers, it was their first time at Winter Regionals.
All BSSC swimmers performed superbly against stiff competition in the Open age group, with many achieving personal best times in the sixty-one swims for which they had qualified, but it was Niamh James (20 years) who was yet again on sizzling form. She won the 200m backstroke 3 seconds ahead of second place and took silver in the 100m backstroke and bronze in the 200m IM.
Four other swimmers achieved top eight finishes in the East Region in the Open category:
- Kirsty – 4th 200m breaststroke & 8th 100m breaststroke
- Sami – 5th 200m butterfly & 400m IM
- Millie – 5th 200m freestyle
- Callum D – 7th 50m butterfly & 8th 100m butterfly
Given the single Open age category in this Championships, many of our younger swimmers found it tough to get into the finals, but they showed huge potential for the future being some of the fastest when results were split by age group. Continuing on from her summer regional successes, our youngest qualifier Ella Greatbatch was the 2nd fastest 13 year old in the 100m Breaststroke, and 3rd 13 year old in 200m Breaststroke.
Additional congratulations go to Kirsty, Sami, Millie, Alex, Niamh and Callum D who all achieved qualifying times for the Swim England National Winter Championships. Whilst they head to Sheffield in December, the rest of the club will be busy chasing times to qualify for the Hertfordshire County Championships in Jan 2022.
BSSC East Region Qualifiers: Ella Greatbatch (13yrs); Alice Longman, Kirsty Neill (14yrs); Callum Cox, David Badcock, Emma Fields, Grace Mason, Jago Derrington, Jessica Fields, Lauren Gore, Lilian Opiyo, Miriam Moukdad (15 yrs); Freya Reilly, Sami Zemzami (16yrs); Millie Fields (17yrs); Alexander Catton, Eleanor Mason (18yrs); Niamh James (20yrs); Callum Davis (21yrs).
