Harrow Winter Sprints
10 of our younger Staines swimmers, most from Advanced Teaching squads, travelled to John Lyon School in Harrow on Sunday 18th December after an invitation from Harrow swimming club to join their annual Winter Sprints gala.
This gala was open to 6-10 year olds from Advanced Teaching and Pre-Squads, and the aim was to give young swimmers early experience to a competitive swimming event without too much pressure!
The Staines swimmers, many of whom were competing outside of SSC for the first time, rose to the occasion with some fantastic swims and lots of PBs. There were very few DQs (despite one event being the 100 IM) which is great to see amongst such young and relatively inexperienced swimmers. All the swimmers behaved impeccably and were a credit to the club.
Jevon Sweeney (7) and Joseph Ward (8) have only very recently been promoted to AT3 from Black Hats and have little previous experience of competitive swimming, so well done to them, and also to Abigail Newport from AT3 who is also still only 7 years old.
Jevon managed to achieve 1st place in three of the 25m events, so hopefully a sign of things to come!
Paige Coombs (8) and Lucia Stevenson (10) also deserve a special mention for achieving 1st place within their age group in all 5 events in the competition.
Well done to all the following swimmers who took part:
Jevon Sweeney, Joseph Ward, Abigail Newport, Paige Coombs, Oliver Bedworth, Ben Hobbs, Oliver Stearn, Connor Cousens, Hannah Aldred, Lucia Stevenson.
Medallists
- Jevon Sweeney - 25m Backstroke 1st, 25m Butterfly 1st, 25m Breaststroke 3rd, 25m Freestyle 1st
- Abigail Newport - 25m Freestyle 3rd
- Paige Coombs - 100m IM 1st, 25m Backstroke 1st, 25m Butterfly 1st, 25m Breaststroke 1st, 25m Freestyle 1st
- Oliver Bedworth - 25m Backstroke 1st, 25m Breaststroke 1st
- Ben Hobbs - 25m Butterfly 2nd, 25m Freestyle 3rd
- Connor Cousens - 100m IM 1st
- Hannah Aldred - 50m Freestyle 3rd, 50m Butterfly 3rd
- Lucia Stevenson -100m IM 1st, 50m Breaststroke 1st, 50m Freestyle 1st, 50m Butterfly 1st, 50m Backstroke 1st