News Summary 2010

Leeds’ Young Stars on the Cover of Swimming Times

Posted on 23 December 2010

City of Leeds’ tri­umph in last mon­th’s Junior League Final makes the front cov­er of Decem­ber’s Swim­ming Times Magazine.

The Swim­ming Times arti­cle has been scanned and is avail­able in PDF for­mat below. Please note that it is a large file and may take a while to download.

Cour­tesy of the ASA.

City of Leeds Storm to Victory in North East Final

Posted on 14 December 2010

City of Leeds A Team qual­i­fy for the Are­na League Nation­al Final after an emphat­ic vic­to­ry in the North East League Final.

The final of the North East Nation­al Are­na Swim­ming League took place at the John Charles Cen­tre, Leeds, on 12th Decem­ber 2010. Com­pet­ing teams were, City of Leeds, City of Sheffield, Don­cast­er Dartes, Har­ro­gate, Gateshead & Wick­ham and Tynemouth.

City of Leeds ​A’ Team got off to a fly­ing start win­ning 8 of the first 10 events. They con­tin­ued this trend win­ning a total of 30 events and fin­ish­ing in the top 3 in 47 out of the 50 events. A great achieve­ment from the whole team. The City of Leeds ​B’ Team fought hard to earn 18 top three fin­ish­es and 5th place overall.

The final (3rd) round stand­ings were:

  1. City of Leeds ​A’ 372
  2. City of Sheffield ​A’ 285
  3. Don­cast­er Dartes 257
  4. Har­ro­gate & Dis­trict 251
  5. City of Leeds ​B’ 237
  6. City of Sheffield ​B’ 141
  7. Gateshead & Wick­ham 141
  8. Tynemouth 116

After 3 wins out of 3 the City of Leeds ​A’ Team were crowned North East League Cham­pi­ons with City of Leeds ​B’ Team fin­ish­ing 4th equal with Harrogate.

This means that City of Leeds qual­i­fy for the Nation­al Final, which will be held at Ponds Forge, Sheffield on April 17th 2011. City of Sheffield qual­i­fy for the Nation­al ​B’ Final.

North East League Final Stand­ings (after 3 rounds)

  1. City of Leeds ​A’ 24pts
  2. City of Sheffield ​A’ 21pts
  3. Don­cast­er Dartes 17pts
  4. Har­ro­gate & Dis­trict 14pts
  5. City of Leeds ​B’ 14pts
  6. City of Sheffield ​B’ 8pts
  7. Gateshead & Wick­ham 7pts
  8. Tynemouth 3pts

Leeds Victorious in Arena Junior Inter-League Competition

Posted on 29 November 2010

Yes­ter­day, City of Leeds stomped to vic­to­ry in the Are­na Junior Inter-League Final for the first time in their history.

Final standings

  1. City of Leeds 322
  2. Hillingdon Borough 274
  3. City of Liverpool 254
  4. Southport Aqua 223
  5. Boldmere 214
  6. City of Derby 212
  7. City of Norwich UEA 191
  8. City of Newcastle 0 (DNC)

After set­ting off in decid­ed­ly chilly con­di­tions, which pre­vent­ed City of New­cas­tle trav­el­ling, the team and sup­port­ers arrived at the Inter­na­tion­al Pool in Cor­by for the final.

After the for­mal­i­ties were com­plet­ed, the swim­ming start­ed and City of Leeds got off to their now tra­di­tion­al strong start, win­ning the first four events to take an ear­ly lead. City of Leeds were instant­ly pegged back and the com­pe­ti­tion began to hot up. At the first points check City of Leeds held a slen­der 20 point lead over near­est rivals Hilling­don Bor­ough with City of Liv­er­pool close in 3rd. The com­pe­ti­tion con­tin­ued with teams trad­ing race vic­to­ries and fight­ing hard for every point. By the half way stage City of Leeds had extend­ed their lead to 43 points with Hilling­don and Liv­er­pool tied in 2nd place.

City of Leeds were nev­er to lose this lead and ran out even­tu­al win­ners with 16 race vic­to­ries and 39 fin­ish­es in the top 3 positions.

City of Leeds vic­to­ry was the prod­uct of an excel­lent team per­for­mance and out­stand­ing sup­port, with our colour­ful and vocal sup­port­ers cheer­ing the team all the way.

Kiani Camp­bell-Grady and Liam Bir­rell won best in age group awards and Liam Bir­rell picked up the top over­all boy trophy.

Well done to swim­mers, coach­es and sup­port­ers for a fan­tas­tic event and an out­stand­ing victory.

Pro­fes­sion­al pho­tos tak­en at the event are avail­able to pur­chase at pho​to​box​gallery​.com/​j​u​n​i​o​r​i​n​t​e​r​f​inals. Note the pass­words for the ​Pre­sen­ta­tions’ and ​Are­na Junior Inter League Finals’ gal­leries are ​pre­sent­fi­nal’ and ​sw1mfinal’ respectively.

Leeds Place 1st and 3rd in Arena Swimming League Round 2

Posted on 15 November 2010

City of Leeds’ strength in depth shines through in the sec­ond round of the North East Are­na Swim­ming League.

On Sat­ur­day 13th Novem­ber the 8 teams from the North East of Eng­land assem­bled at the John Charles Cen­tre for Sport, Leeds, to com­pete in round 2 of the Nation­al Are­na Swim­ming League.

Despite City of Leeds win­ning 6 of the first 10 events, the ear­ly lead­ers were once again Sheffield ​A’ team, with a slen­der 1 point lead after 10 events. After 18 events City of Leeds ​A’ had surged into an 8 point lead which they were nev­er to relin­quish. Win­ning 29 events and plac­ing in the top 3 posi­tions in 46 out of 50 events City of Leeds ​A’ even­tu­al­ly fin­ished 43 point ahead of clos­et rivals Sheffield ​A’. City of Leeds ​B’ team picked up their per­for­mance in round 2 and despite not win­ning any events fin­ished com­fort­ably in 3rd place, pick­ing up 2 places from the pre­vi­ous round, a fan­tas­tic performance.

Round 1

  1. City of Leeds ​A’ 349
  2. City of Sheffield ​A’ 295
  3. Don­cast­er Dartes 260
  4. Har­ro­gate & Dis­trict 247
  5. City of Leeds ​B’ 238
  6. Gateshead & Wick­ham 157
  7. City of Sheffield ​B’ 125
  8. Tynemouth 124

Round 2

  1. City of Leeds ​A’ 366
  2. City of Sheffield ​A’ 329
  3. City of Leeds ​B’ 252
  4. Don­cast­er 212
  5. Har­ro­gate 205
  6. City of Sheffield ​B’ 166
  7. Gateshead & Wick­ham 142
  8. Tynemouth 130

Well done to every­one involved.

Great Weekend for Leeds at NER Championships

Posted on 9 November 2010

City of Leeds’ BAC­GAT Swim­mers in par­tic­u­lar, dom­i­nate pro­ceed­ings at short course NER Cham­pi­onships in Sunderland.

Success for Youngsters at Winter County Competition

Posted on 11 October 2010

Liam Bir­rell and Kiani Camp­bell-Grady come away with five and four golds respec­tive­ly as Leeds enjoy suc­cess in first cham­pi­onship event of the season.

Ponds Forge, Sheffield was the venue for the first cham­pi­onship event of the sea­son. With some of the best swim­mers in the coun­ty try­ing to post some fast ear­ly sea­son times, the com­pe­ti­tion at the York­shire Swim­ming Asso­ci­a­tion Win­ter Cham­pi­onships was tough.

The City of Leeds were rep­re­sent­ed by swim­mers from the Devel­op­ment, Com­pe­ti­tion, Region­al Youth and Senior and Nation­al Age and Youth squads. There were some great per­for­mances over the week­end with many best times espe­cial­ly form the clubs younger swimmers.

Medal­lists

Gold (14)

Liam Bir­rell (5), Chantel Mad­den (2), Chloe Adams, Kiani Camp­bell-Grady (4), Richard Maw­son, Lewis Evers

Sil­ver (4)

Eleanor Jones, Jes­si­ca Man­ning (2), Chantel Madden

Bronze (10)

Richard Maw­son (2), Jacob Sed­don, Eleanor Jones (2), Jes­si­ca Man­ning (2), Nico­la Gra­ham, Olivia White, Euan Cowan

Well done to every­one involved.

City of Leeds Victorious in Regional Arena Swimming League

Posted on 11 October 2010

City of Leeds tri­umphant­ly reignite Are­na League cam­paign after a five year hiatus.

Bochmann Blitzes Life Time Best to Finish 4th at Commonwealths

Posted on 8 October 2010

After a dis­ap­point­ing 200m indi­vid­ual med­ley ear­li­er in the week, Anne Bochmann clocked a two sec­ond life-time best today to fin­ish 4th in the 400m freestyle at the Com­mon­wealth Games in Delhi.

Sec­ond to dou­ble Olympic Cham­pi­on Rebec­ca Adling­ton for much of the race, Anne’s time of 4:08.30 was just 0.08 sec­onds out­side bronze medal posi­tion, which was even­tu­al­ly won by Wales’ Jaz Carlin.

Well done and con­grat­u­la­tions Anne from all at City of Leeds Swim­ming Club. A great swim after a long and gru­elling sea­son that’s not over just yet; Anne is swim­ming in the 200m but­ter­fly tomorrow!

Impressive Medal Haul at Junior Open Meet

Posted on 6 October 2010

Despite it being ear­ly in the sea­son there were some fan­tas­tic per­for­mances from City of Leeds Swim­mers. The atmos­phere on pool­side was excel­lent and many swim­mers achieved best times.

City of Leeds came away with an impres­sive medal haul of:

39 Gold

Richard Maw­son (2), Lau­ren Roberts, Kiani Camp­bell-Grady (3), Lin­da Shaw (4), Toby Kitch­ing (2), Lewis Evers (3), Blake Ben­nett (2), James Thomp­son (3), Rebec­ca Mot­ter­shaw (2), Euan Cow­an, Eleanor Jones (2), Kather­ine Fish­er (2), Amy Light (2), Phebe Robin­son, Ben Tay­lor-Walsh, Liam Bir­rell, Fabio Lare­do (2), Abbie Holyoake, Cleo Gor­ringe, Oliv­er Bing­ham, Rebekah Bir­rel, James Water­worth, Dom Beech.

54 Sil­ver

Joseph Gray (3), Geor­gia Coates (2), Tom Gaskell, Dan Stan­way (2), Har­ri­son Day (3), Phebe Robin­son, Rebekah Bir­rell (2), Dan Hall (2), Fabio Lare­do (2), Rebec­ca Fish­er (2), Beth Reid, Jem­ma Ayles­bury, Richard Maw­son (2), Amy Light (2), James Hole, Blake Ben­nett, Dom Beech (3), Jess Lew­ing­ton (3), Euan Cow­an, Toby Kitch­ing, Chris Green­wood (2), Oliv­er Bing­ham, Kit Law­less Coombs, James Water­worth, Fin­lay Law­less Coombs, John Wright, Lin­da Shaw, Han­nah Senior, Nico­la Garham (2), Anna Bell­wood, Ben Tay­lor-Walsh (2), Abi­gail Jack, Chris Jackson.

46 Bronze

Chris Green­wood (4), Jacob But­ter­field (2), Fred­dy Hoban (2), Nico­la Gra­ham (3), Liam Bir­rell, Dom Beech (3), Lau­ren Roberts, Bran­non Pear­son (4), Joseph Gray, Rebekah Bir­rell (2), Callan Jack, Tom Brag­in­ton (2), Sasha Kitch­ing, Cleo Gor­ringe, Dan Hall, Fabio Lare­do (2), Tide Dracup (2), Alexan­dra Parkes, Lay­la Black, Anna Bell­wood (2), Lib­er­ty Mel­lors, Annie Shaw, Beth Hay, Kit Law­less Coombs, Lee Sin­clair, Ker­rie Sin­clair, Court­ney Leath­ley, James Water­worth, Thomas McAuliffe.

Well done to everyone.

Junior League Team Storm to Victory in Northern Final

Posted on 5 October 2010

Sun­day saw the City of Leeds over­come strong oppo­si­tion to be crowned North­ern League Cham­pi­ons and will now progress to the Nation­al Final in November.

Waterhouse Wins Open Water Double

Posted on 13 September 2010

Rep­re­sent­ing Scot­land in the French Open Water Cup this week­end, Stephen Water­house beat a strong inter­na­tion­al con­tin­gent to com­plete the dou­ble in both the 5k and 10k events.

Double Victory for White Rose League Teams

Posted on 12 September 2010

A mag­nif­i­cent dou­ble vic­to­ry by both ​A’ & ​B’ teams in the White Rose League meets held at Aquat­ics Cen­tre, JCCS.

Sat­ur­day 11th Sep­tem­ber 2010 saw the top clubs in York­shire con­gre­gate at the John Charles Cen­tre, Leeds for the annu­al White Rose Com­pe­ti­tion. This year there were two galas back to back, with the City of Leeds Swim­ming Club being rep­re­sent­ed in both galas.

Gala 1: City of Leeds ​A’ team Storm to Victory

The first gala saw the City of Leeds ​A’ team going up against strong oppo­si­tion from the City of Sheffield, Bor­ough of Kirklees, York, Kingston Upon Hull, Har­ro­gate, Don­cast­er Dartes and Rother­ham Metro.

City of Leeds ​A’ team got off to a fan­tas­tic start win­ning 6 of the first 8 relay events, open­ing up an ear­ly points lead. As the gala moved into the indi­vid­ual events the City of Leeds ​A’ team con­tin­ued to build on their great start win­ning a fur­ther 15 events and con­sis­tent­ly fin­ish­ing in the top 3. Going into the final block of relay events the City of Leeds ​A’ team had a 25 point lead.

This lead proved too much as the City of Leeds ​A’ team stormed to a fur­ther 7 wins in 9 events, win­ning the over­all com­pe­ti­tion and fin­ish­ing 44 points ahead of the Bor­ough of Kirklees, with 28 event wins. The ​A’ team now trav­els to Lin­coln on the 2nd Octo­ber to com­pete in the North­ern Area Final of the Nation­al Junior League.

indi­vid­ual win­ners were: Ellie Jones (2), Abi­gail Jack, Kiani Camp­bell-Grady (3), Liam Bir­rell (2), Chantel Mad­den, Toby Kitch­ing, Blake Ben­nett, Euan Cow­an, Richard Maw­son (2) and Chloe Adams.

Gala 2: City of Leeds ​B’ team make it a Double!

The sec­ond gala saw the City of Leeds ​B’ team take on City Of Sheffield ​B’ team, Don­cast­er Dartes ​B’ team and the City Of Bradford.

Fol­low­ing on from the ​A’ team the City of Leeds ​B’ team also made a great start win­ning 6 of the first 8 relay events. Keep­ing up the momen­tum as the sec­ond gala moved into the indi­vid­ual events, the City of Leeds ​B’ team won 14 of the indi­vid­ual events and placed no low­er than 3rd. This meant that the ​B’ team took a strong lead into the final phase of the gala win­ning 4 of the last 9 relay events, mak­ing it an impres­sive 24 event vic­to­ries. Despite a strong come­back from Brad­ford, the City of Leeds ​B’ team won the sec­ond gala by 23 points, secur­ing a fan­tas­tic dou­ble for the club.

The indi­vid­ual win­ners were: Dara Mad­den, Abi­gail Bur­ton (2), Kit Law­less Coombes, Han­nah White, William Finn, Kate Offord, Oliv­er Bing­ham, Ben Tay­lor Walsh, Bil­ly Walk­er, Elle Pick­ett, Fin­lay Law­less Coombes, Leah Crisp, and Bethany Hay.

Well done to all the swim­mers and staff involved from both teams and thanks to all the vol­un­teers for their time in mak­ing these two meets possible.

Due to a clash of dates, those City of Leeds ​A’ team swim­mers who have been entered for the City of Leeds Junior Open will be removed from the Sat­ur­day pro­gram and refunds will be arranged.

Bochmann Sets Her Sights on Delhi 2010 as Leeds End The Year In Style

Posted on 9 September 2010

The ASA Nation­al Cham­pi­onships in Sun­der­land saw a first senior inter­na­tion­al qual­i­fi­ca­tion for Bochmann and a first senior medal for Kiritschenko.

Whilst most of the swim­mers arriv­ing in Sun­der­land were some­what weary after a long and demand­ing Youth Cham­pi­onships and found it very chal­leng­ing to deliv­er the same per­for­mances against some of the best senior swim­mers in the UK, the meet for oth­ers rep­re­sent­ed great opportunities.

The high­light for the team on day one was Anne Bochmann win­ning the senior 200m indi­vid­ual med­ley title in a new life­time best per­for­mance of 2:13.88 to qual­i­fy for the Com­mon­wealth Games and her first senior inter­na­tion­al meet. Kate Hutchin­son, who moved from Leeds to Lough­bor­ough last year, was sec­ond in 2:15.33 and World Open Water Cham­pi­on Keri Anne Payne was third in 2:15.38 secs.

Avril Kir­itschenko con­tin­ued her great form when she qual­i­fied sec­ond going into the final of the 50m breast­stroke and raced to anoth­er life­time best per­for­mance and club record of 32.44 to secure the sil­ver medal; her first at a senior nation­al lev­el. Lat­er in the week Avril went on to fin­ish 4th in the 100m breast­stroke in anoth­er LTB per­for­mance of 1:11.16 miss­ing a medal by less than 5/​10th of a sec­ond to fin­ish off a very suc­cess­ful season.

Matthew Alli­son, who has been with the pro­gramme since com­ing to uni­ver­si­ty last Sep­tem­ber cruised to the final in the Men’s 400m indi­vid­ual med­ley in what is his first Senior Nation­al Cham­pi­onships since mov­ing from the youth ranks last sea­son. In the final Matthew fin­ished a cred­itable 4th place with a life­time best per­for­mance of 4:24.7.

Emma Gra­ham post­ed a life­time best in the Wom­ens 50m freestyle final after qual­i­fy­ing in the morn­ing heats in 10th posi­tion. She suc­ceed­ed in mov­ing up to 5th place from the out­side lane in a time of 26.53 and less than 2/​10th of a sec­ond from a podi­um place. Both Emma and Danielle Hall-Jack­son fin­ished top 8 in the fastest heat of the Wom­ens 800m freestyle with Danielle fin­ish­ing 5th mar­gin­al­ly out­side her best time set at the recent Youth Cham­pi­onships and a good result for her first senior final.

In the Wom­ens 400m freestyle, Anne Bochmann lined up with Olympic medal­list and for­mer world record hold­er Joanne Jack­son and was deter­mined to take her on. The expec­ta­tion of a fast first 200m did not mate­ri­alise and whilst Anne matched Joanne stroke for stroke until 300m her strength and matu­ri­ty over the last 100m was too much for Anne who nonethe­less secured her sec­ond medal of the cham­pi­onships. Only some 15 min­utes lat­er Anne was back in the pool for the 400m indi­vid­ual med­ley final where she had to set­tle for sil­ver once again behind Stephanie Proud albeit with anoth­er life­time best per­for­mance of 4:44.67 This topped off a great sea­son for Anne cul­mi­nat­ing in her Com­mon­wealth Games selec­tion in the 200 IM200m but­ter­fly and 400m freestyle.

It was anoth­er great team effort from a young team.

Girls On Top at National Youth Championships

Posted on 8 September 2010

Lots of life time best per­for­mances help bring home the wom­en’s team tro­phy for the sec­ond year run­ning with the club fin­ish­ing sec­ond top team overall.

Age Groupers Win Top Team at Nationals

Posted on 16 August 2010

Five days of great per­for­mances from every swim­mer con­tributed to the team win­ning the Nation­al Age Group Team Cham­pi­onship title for the sec­ond time in three years. A fan­tas­tic achieve­ment for all involved.

Benson Strikes Gold at Eton Dorney Triathlon Event

Posted on 13 July 2010

Con­grat­u­la­tions to Gor­don Ben­son who a won the SUSO 13 – 17 years High Per­for­mance Draft­ing Triathlon (400m Swim, 10km Bike, 2.5km Run) at Eton Dor­ney Lake on Saturday.

As a result Gor­don has been select­ed to rep­re­sent Great Britain at the Euro­pean Triathlon Relays to be held in Por­tu­gal at the end of August.

Well done Gor­don from all at City of Leeds Swim­ming Club.

Report: NER BAGCAT Championships 2010

Posted on 9 June 2010

Con­grat­u­la­tions to all swim­mers who com­pet­ed at NER BAG­CATS over the week­end. There were some fan­tas­tic per­for­mances that result­ed in 21 Medals, 63 Finals Swims as well as Life Time Bests and Nation­al Qual­i­fy­ing times.

Gold (10)

Daniel Stan­way, Freya Resendez (2), Blake Ben­nett, Rebekah Bir­rell (2), James Thomp­son, Samuel Bloom, Chloe Adams, Amy Light

Sil­ver (6)

Har­ri­son Day, Joanne Simp­son, Rebekah Bir­rell, Freya Resendez Girls 4x200 freestyle Team (Amy Light, Kather­ine Fish­er, Rebekah Bir­rell, Nico­la Gra­ham) Girls 4x100 freestyle Team (Nico­la Gra­ham, Rebekah Bir­rell, Lin­da Shaw, Amy Light)

Bronze (5)

Fred­dy Hoban, Dou­glas Walk­er, Freya Resendez, James Thomp­son, Kather­ine Fisher

Final­ists

Adam Smith, Kiani Camp­bell-Grady, Chris Green­wood, Ben Tay­lor-Walsh, Jacob Sed­don, Will Steven­son, Rebec­ca Mot­ter­shaw, Richard Maw­son, Daniel Hall, Boys 4x200 freestyle Team, Boys 4x100 freestyle Team

Graham Selected for World Championships Team

Posted on 21 May 2010

A belat­ed con­grat­u­la­tions to Emma Gra­ham, who on the 8th May com­pet­ed in the 10k at the LEN Open Water Cup in Eilat, Israel. Fin­ish­ing as the high­est placed junior in 6th place, and only 2 min­utes behind Olympic Cham­pi­on Ker­ri-Anne Payne, she secured selec­tion for the 14th FINA World Cham­pi­onships in Canada!

Emma is also set to rep­re­sent Great Britain at the Euro­pean Open Water Cham­pi­onships and Euro­pean Junior Open Water Cham­pi­onships lat­er in the year.

Well done Emma from all at City of Leeds SC!

City of Leeds regain Yorkshire Bank Trophy

Posted on 8 February 2010

After a thrilling week­end, City of Leeds regained the top senior team tro­phy at the British Gas spon­sored York­shire SA Senior/​Junior Cham­pi­onships at the Aquat­ics Cen­tre, JCCS.