The sun shines down on Leyland’s swimmers!!
From our poolside reporter Jayne Elliott
The Swim England North West Summer Regionals certainly lived up to its name this weekend as the sun shone brightly through the enormous windows and into Liverpool Aquatic Centre.
The event takes place over three weekends between March and May each year with the first weekend reserved for swimmers aged 15 and over to compete before knuckling down to revise for their forthcoming exams and as a long course level 1 competition held at this time it also allows older swimmers to achieve times which are eligible for the Summer British and National age group competitions.
Unfortunately the COVID pandemic has meant that the event has been cancelled for the last two years and this year’s competition has not been without controversy with the qualifying times quite significantly altered from previous years. For our older swimmers – and in particular those in the 17 and over age group this has resulted in qualifying times which essentially equated in most instances to times required to swim at next week’s British Championship event – and meant that only two of our 17 and over swimmers had any qualifying times at all.
The first weekend of the competition was held at Liverpool Aquatic Centre which this year hosts the event across all three weekends due to the Manchester Aquatics Centre being closed for refurbishments.
Barracudas had eleven swimmers competing over the weekend: Ethan Roberts, Harry Ferson, Leo Taylor, Tom Arkwright, George Lee, Heidi Hailwood, Amelie Elliott, Ella Blundell, Megan Doherty, Danielle Brady and Hannah Morris.
James Handford had also qualified but had sadly been required to pull out with an injury the week before.
Session 1 started well with Ethan Roberts competing in the 200 breaststroke and 100 metre freestyle and then George Lee and Leo Taylor in the 50 metre butterfly.
It was the girls that set the pace though with Amelie Elliott making the final for the 50 metre breaststroke in a new personal best time and Hannah Morris finaling in both the 100 metre butterfly and 200 metre backstroke.
While they rested up for the finals Megan Doherty went to work swimming a very impressive 800 metre freestyle race and knocking over 20 seconds off her personal best time. Whilst Megan headed to the warm down pool to swim a bit more Amelie and Hannah prepared for the finals.
Hannah brought home Leyland’s first medal of the Championships in the 100 metre butterfly securing a well-deserved silver medal. Next up was Amelie who blasted her way down the pool to win gold in the 50 metre breaststroke.
After a quick drink Hannah raced her second final of the morning finishing third in the 200 metre backstroke.
As the sun shone and session 1 came to an end the swimmers (and parents!) headed outside to picnic in the sun before Session 2 commenced.
Session 2 saw Ethan and Tom compete in the fast and furious 50 metre freestyle heats. Tom secured his place in the 17 and over final and sat back down to watch the rest of the proceedings!
Hannah and Danielle competed in the 50 metre backstroke and both secured a place in their age group finals followed by Megan Doherty who definitely covered more metres than anyone else that day securing another pb and a place in the 200 metre freestyle final.
Amelie followed on qualifying in first place for the 100 metre breaststroke final and then Leo had a strong swim in the 400 metre freestyle finishing 5th overall and bagging a new personal best time.
With five swimmers in the finals there was lots to shout about with a bronze medal going to Hannah in the 50 metre backstroke and another gold to Amelie in the 100 metre breaststroke bringing day 1 to an end.
As the clocks went forwards Sunday morning saw a lot of tired looking swimmers return to poolside with more than one Leyland swimmer forgetting it was Mothers day (Mmmm……).
First up in the pool was Amelie who managed to secure top spot going into the 200 metre breaststroke final. Leo Taylor swam a good 100 metre butterfly securing his second pb followed by Ethan in the 50 breaststroke.
The 50 metre fly saw Hannah make it into the final with personal best times for Danielle and Amelie – with Danielle also making it into the finals.
Heidi Hailwood swam the 100 metre freestyle as did Megan Doherty and Hannah managed to final again.
As lunchtime approached the finals commenced with Amelie making it a treble winning gold in the 200 metre breaststroke in a new personal best time and Hannah powered her way to gold in the 50 metre butterfly.
The afternoon session saw Leo Taylor swim the 200IM followed by Hannah, Ella Blundell, Danielle and Heidi all competing in the 50 metre freestyle with Hannah and Ella (who secured a great pb) both making it through to the finals.
The 50 metre backstroke saw three of our swimmers compete with good swims from Ethan and Leo and a very impressive swim by Harry Ferson who swam a personal best time to get into his first final and then going faster again in the final.
Ethan swam the 100 metre breaststoke and then Leo Taylor was called up to a compete in a swim off in the 50 metre backstroke having recorded the exact same time as another swimmer in the heats. Always entertaining (although maybe not for the swimmers) this swim off consisted of 4 swimmers with two in lanes 2 & 3 with identical times from one age group and the other two in lanes 6 & 7 with identical times from another age group. Leo didn’t better his time but it was a great experience and had the spectators all cheering in their seats!
Hannah – who must have been exhausted by now – made it through to the 100 metre backstroke final with Danielle narrowly missing out.
In such tough competition there were no further medals on Sunday afternoon but plenty more great swims to round off the first weekend.
Well done to everyone who took part and to Head Coach Gillian Rankin for surviving the heat and looking after the swimmers on poolside.