21 July 2025

In April our swim­mers attend­ed the Aquat­ics GB Swim­ming Cham­pi­onships. This is the high­est lev­el of domes­tic com­pe­ti­tion in the coun­try. As a result of some strong per­for­mances from the Leeds Swim­mers 5 of them were select­ed to rep­re­sent Great Britain at the Euro­pean Aquat­ics Junior Cham­pi­onships in Slovakia:

  • Emma Wood – Start­ed at Kip­pax Stage 8, joined the scheme in 2016
  • Daniel Ran­som – Start­ed at John Smeaton Stage 8, joined the scheme in 2016
  • Matil­da Pot­ter – Start­ed at Kirk­stall Stage 8, joined the scheme in 2018
  • Hol­lie Wil­son – Start­ed at Scott Hall Stage 8, joined the scheme in 2018
  • Gabriel Shep­herd – Start­ed at Har­ro­gate SC, joined the scheme in 2022

Last week the select­ed swim­mers trav­elled to Slo­va­kia for the Euro­pean Junior Cham­pi­onships. Which proved to be a week of fan­tas­tic devel­op­ment for all 5 of the indi­vid­u­als some of which per­formed at an out­stand­ing­ly high lev­el and came away with medals, whilst oth­ers expe­ri­enced suc­cess in the form of learn­ing and devel­op­ment which will serve them well for future expo­sures to the inter­na­tion­al stage.

Medals

Gabriel Shep­herd

  • Bronze – Men’s 4x100m Freestyle Relay
  • Sil­ver – Mixed 4x100m Freestyle Relay
  • Gold – Men’s 4x100m Med­ley Relay

Hol­lie Wilson

  • Bronze – Wom­en’s 4x200m Freestyle Relay

Daniel Ran­som

  • Gold – Mixed 4x100m Med­ley Relay
  • Gold – Men’s 4x100m Med­ley Relay

As a result of their per­for­mances across the week both Daniel and Gabriel have been sub­se­quent­ly select­ed for the World Aquat­ics Junior Cham­pi­onships in August, where they will rep­re­sent Great Britain again amongst some of the strongest junior swim­mers from across the world.

To have 5 swim­mers at Euro­pean Junior lev­el is a fan­tas­tic achieve­ment and is more than any oth­er pro­gramme in Brit­ian. A true tes­ta­ment to how strong our age group and youth devel­op­ment pro­gramme is.