Age Groupers Win Top Team at Nationals

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. 

Day 1 (28/07): Gra­ham, Thomp­son and Camp­bell-Grady Make Podium!

The first morn­ing heats start­ed with excep­tion­al per­for­mances from every­one. Nine morn­ing heat swims con­vert­ed to 8 mak­ing finals. 

After­noon 1500m heats gave the team their first medal of the cham­pi­onships. Nico­la Gra­ham swam a life­time best (LTB) per­for­mance to win a bronze medal. Rebekah Bir­rell con­tin­ued her great start to the Cham­pi­onships by swim­ming a 32 sec­ond life­time best to fin­ish 7^th after mak­ing two finals from her two heat swims in the morn­ing session. 

The finals ses­sion saw more suc­cess for the City of Leeds swim­mers. Rebekah Bir­rell and Amy Light both came 7^th in life­time best per­for­mances in their respec­tive age group cat­e­gories for 200m indi­vid­ual med­ley. Kiani Camp­bell-Grady swam LTB to fin­ish 10^th in the 100m freestyle, while Rebekah Bir­rell com­pet­ed in her sec­ond final of the evening swim­ming to a 10^th placed position. 

James Thomp­son swam his first final of the cham­pi­onships in the 200m breast­stroke. After an over excit­ed heat swim James per­formed a very con­trolled race to win a Sil­ver medal in a new LTB. The teams last final of the evening saw Kiani Camp­bell-Grady win her first medal of the cham­pi­onships in the 200m back­stroke in a LTB. 

Sam Bloom swam a LTB in the 200m breast­stroke in the morn­ing heats, A fan­tas­tic first day! 

Day 2 (29/07): Gold & Sil­ver for Walk­er, Sil­ver for Light and Sil­ver for Bennett!

After a fan­tas­tic first day, the sec­ond morn­ing saw some phe­nom­e­nal swims, 14 heat swims saw 9 through to the evening finals. Kiani Camp­bell-Grady, Rebekah Bir­rell and Katy Fish­er all swam LTB in the 400m freestyle and Chris Green­wood swam a LTB in the 200m butterfly. 

The boys 1500m heats proved to be a suc­cess fol­low­ing on from the girls 1500m on the open­ing first day. Dougie Walk­er swam a LTB by 29 sec­onds to fin­ish 4^th, while Blake Ben­nett fin­ished in the sil­ver medal posi­tion in a 18 sec­ond LTB. Jacob Sed­don was our third team mem­ber to com­pete in the boys 1500m, Jacob swam a fan­tas­tic 18 sec­onds LTB that he achieved just six weeks ear­li­er at the NER championships. 

The first of the finals on day 2 was the girls 400m freestyle. After an impres­sive start on Day 1, Nico­la Gra­ham con­tin­ued her fine form fin­ish­ing 7^th in a LTB. Blake Ben­nett fin­ished 10^th in the 200m but­ter­fly just short of the LTB he set in the morn­ing heats. Dou­glas Walk­er swam a well paced race to win Gold in the same but­ter­fly final as Blake, Dougie swan LTB both in the morn­ing heats and final, a great con­ver­sion. Fred­dy Hoban com­pet­ing in his first Nation­al Cham­pi­onships made his age group 200m but­ter­fly final in a LTB to fin­ish in 7^th Place. Nico­la Gra­ham com­pet­ing in sec­ond final of the finals ses­sion fin­ished 10^th just out­side the LTB she set in the morn­ing heats of the 200m breast­stroke. Amy Light con­tin­ued her fan­tas­tic start to the cham­pi­onships. Day 2 Amy qual­i­fied sec­ond fastest in the 200m breast­stroke in LTB con­vert­ing again in the final to win her first Nation­al Sil­ver medal. Katy Fish­er was the teams next final­ist, Katy swam a 2‑second LTB to make the final of the 100m but­ter­fly, she con­vert­ed again in the final to knock-off anoth­er 1.5 sec­onds to fin­ish in 6^th posi­tion. Katy was anoth­er swim­mer that had qual­i­fied for Nation­al Cham­pi­onships and rose to the occa­sion. Next was our Nation­al Cham­pi­on Dougie Walk­er swim­ming in the 200m indi­vid­ual med­ley, still on a high from his vic­to­ry in the 200m but­ter­fly, Dou­glas con­vert­ed again the LTB he swam in the morn­ing heats to win a sil­ver medal. A fan­tas­tic first day for Dou­glas. The last event of the evening was the girls 4 x 100m freestyle team. Nico­la Gra­ham lead the team off in a LTB, the oth­er three girls fol­lowed suit Rebekah Bir­rell, Lin­da Shaw and Amy Light all swim­ming 1:02 for their respec­tive legs. The team fin­ished in 5^th place. 

Day 3 (30/07): 7 Heat swims, 6 mak­ing Nation­al Finals!

Day 3 was off to a great start with Dou­glas Walk­er and Blake Ben­nett mak­ing finals in their age group of the 400m freestyle, Dougie also made the 200m back­stroke final to add to his col­lec­tion of fan­tas­tic swims so far. The girls did not let them­selves down, all three of the girls, Rebekah Bir­rell, Katy Fish­er and Rebec­ca Mot­ter­shaw made their respec­tive age group finals in the 200m but­ter­fly all in LTB. 

The dis­tance events in the after­noon ses­sions proved to be as suc­cess­ful as the first two days. Leeds had three girls in the 800m freestyle, each of them fin­ished in the top 10 in their respec­tive age groups. Kiani Camp­bell-Grady swam a fan­tas­tic 22 sec­ond LTB to fin­ish 8^th, Rebekah Bir­rell pro­duced anoth­er LTB by 15 sec­onds to fin­ish 9^th and Nico­la Gra­ham swam a LTB to fin­ish 7^th after hav­ing emer­gency phys­io­ther­a­py in the morn­ing due to her neck mus­cles in spasm. 

The finals ses­sion on Day 3 pro­duced some out­stand­ing swims. First in for Leeds were Dougie Walk­er and Blake Ben­nett in the 12years 400m freestyle, both improved on their LTB from the morn­ing heats to fin­ish 5^th & 6^th respec­tive­ly. Dou­glas was in again in the final of the 200m back­stroke, Dou­glas fin­ished in 8^th place just short of the LTB he post­ed in the morn­ing heats. 

Next were the 200m but­ter­fly girls. Rebekah Bir­rell and Katy Fish­er com­pet­ing in the 12years final. Rebekah Bir­rell fin­ished 10^th place col­lect­ing a bag full of final rep­re­sen­ta­tion for the City of Leeds. Katy Fish­er came into the com­pe­ti­tion with a LTB of 2:36 in the 200m but­ter­fly, Katy swam the heats and made the final with a LTB of 2:30.12, Katy kept her nerve in her sec­ond Nation­al final to swim a fur­ther 2.8 sec­onds faster (2:27) to fin­ish in 4^th posi­tion, a fan­tas­tic swim from Katy. Rebec­ca Mot­ter­shaw swam in the 13 years 200m but­ter­fly final, qual­i­fy­ing in 10^th posi­tion Rebec­ca dropped anoth­er sec­ond from the 4 sec­onds she dropped in the morn­ing heats to post anoth­er LTB (2:26) to fin­ish 8^th in the final. A great result for Rebec­ca and the team. 

Day 4 (31/07): Male and Female 100m breast­stro­kers win Bronze and Ben­nett makes podi­um again!

The City of Leeds swim­mers on Day 4 morn­ing heats put sol­id per­for­mances in to make evening finals, Blake Ben­nett, James Thomp­son, Amy Light and the Girls 4 x 200m freestyle team all made it through to evening finals in their respec­tive events. Chris Green­wood kept his 100% LTB record at his first Nation­al Cham­pi­onships swim­ming a 4 sec­ond LTB in the 100m butterfly. 

The after­noon, Boys 800m heats pro­duced two fan­tas­tic swims from Blake Ben­nett and Dou­glas Walk­er. Blake was swim­ming in one of the ear­li­er heats so had to swim against the clock to gain any chance of mak­ing the podi­um. Blake swam a 29 sec­ond LTB to win a Bronze medal. Dou­glas fol­lowed Blake in the heats remain­ing, con­tin­u­ing his excel­lent per­for­mances Dou­glas swam an 18 sec­ond LTB fin­ish­ing in 4^th posi­tion behind his team mate. 

Day 4 finals ses­sion saw the City of Leeds young­sters swim fan­tas­ti­cal­ly well once again. Blake Ben­nett fin­ished in 9^th place in the 200m freestyle James Thomp­son fin­ished 9^th in 100m but­ter­fly fol­low­ing a LTB to qual­i­fy for the evening finals. Amy Light and James Thomp­son fin­ished in Bronze medal posi­tions in the 100m breast­stroke in their respec­tive cat­e­gories. Both Amy and James swam LTB in the morn­ing heats and con­vert­ed to swim faster in the evening finals. That’s the way to do it! The Girls 4 x 200m freestyle team were dis­qual­i­fied unfor­tu­nate­ly, how­ev­er the girls war­rant a spe­cial men­tion as all four girls con­vert­ed by some mar­gin to improve their heat time. Well done to, Amy Light, Rebekah Bir­rell, Katy Fish­er and Nico­la Gra­ham.

Day 5 (01/08): 100% LTB in 400m IMs & Walk­er Podi­ums again!

The morn­ing heats of the final day of the Nation­al Age Groups Cham­pi­onships were very suc­cess­ful. Both Male and Females had 100% LTB in the morn­ing heats along with both med­ley teams mak­ing finals. Kiani Camp­bell-Grady swam first in a 3 sec­ond LTB, Rebekah Bir­rell then swam an 8 sec­ond LTB to make the 12 year old final, Amy Light swam only her 2^nd 400m IM in her career swim­ming a 5 sec­ond LTB, Nico­la Gra­ham was the last of the girls to swim in the event in which she made the 13 year old final in anoth­er LTB per­for­mance. Next… The boys were back in town!! Richard Maw­son com­pet­ed first for the boys with a 4 sec­ond LTB, Jacob Sed­don kept his 100% LTB per­for­mances at the cham­pi­onships swim­ming a 6 sec­ond LTB, Dou­glas Walk­er and Blake Ben­nett swam a 16 sec­ond and 10 sec­ond LTB respec­tive­ly to make the 12 year olds final and final­ly James Thomp­son swam a LTB in his final indi­vid­ual event of the Cham­pi­onships. The Girls med­ley team of Rebekah Bir­rell, Amy Light, Katy Fish­er and Nico­la Gra­ham qual­i­fied for the evening finals whilst the boys med­ley team matched the girls also qual­i­fy­ing for their final. Lead off by Fabio Lare­do in a LTB in the 100m back­stroke, Sam Bloom, James Thomp­son and Har­ri­son Day kept the good start turn­ing it in to a great finish. 

The con­clud­ing finals ses­sion brought a fan­tas­tic fin­ish to an awe­some week of age group swim­ming for the City of Leeds. Rebec­ca Bir­rell dropped a fur­ther 3 sec­onds to fin­ish 5^th in anoth­er LTB per­for­mance. Nico­la Gra­ham swam under the 5:10 (5:09.99) to fin­ish 7^th in a LTB. Blake Ben­nett and Dou­glas Walk­er com­pet­ed in the 12 year old 400m indi­vid­ual med­ley final, after swim­ming mas­sive LTB in the heats Dou­glas equalled what he swam in the morn­ing to win a sil­ver medal whilst Blake dropped a fur­ther 5‑seconds to fin­ish in 4^th place in a LTB. The Girls med­ley team of Rebekah Bir­rell, Amy Light, Katy Fish­er and Nico­la Gra­ham fin­ished 5^th all swim­ming under their LTB as did the boys med­ley team of Fabio Lare­do, Sam Bloom, James Thomp­son and Har­ri­son Day fin­ish­ing in 10^th posi­tion. Fabio lead the team off in a LTB of 1:05, Sam dived in to swim 1:12, James Thomp­son main­tain his 1:04 from ear­li­er in the week and Team Cap­tain Har­ri­son Day fin­ished with a 0:58. An excel­lent team performance. 

Con­grat­u­la­tions to all the swim­mers, you swam excep­tion­al­ly well and we are all very proud of each and every one of you.