Worcester’s swimmers continued their winning ways in 2015 with an excellent performance at the County Relay Championships on Sunday 28th June.
Having already retained both their Winter League and PGL League titles this year, the swimmers made it a hat-trick by winning the prestigious County Relay Championships for a second consecutive year.
The Championships consist of 4 x 50m Freestyle and Medley Relays for both male and female swimmers across all age bands from 9-10 through to Masters, with each relay team earning points for their Club… and across the 32 relays, Worcester proved worthy champions amassing 187 points, just ahead of local rivals Stourbridge on 170 and well clear of all the other Clubs despite a couple of rare Disqualifications.
Encouragingly, every single swimmer/team contributed to the overall success.
In the 9/10 age group, medals were a little hard to come by with the girls teams of Aimee Monks, Grace Rhoden, Lucy Wadley, Ciara Mahanta and Maisie Lyons narrowly missing out, finishing 4th in both the Freestyle and Medley races. However, the boys went one better with Henry Halford, Milo Reed, Michael Agoston and Jack Sweeney picking up terrific Bronze medals for their hard fought 3rd places.
In the 11/12s, competition was fierce with County best times being rewritten in both the Heats & Finals. In the girls, Jenny Gearey, Leyla Tayar, Josie Armstrong and Olivia Fletcher were just edged out by the powerful Stourbridge quartet, having to settle for two 2nd place finishes, whilst in the Boys, Matthew Richards, Isaac Shepherd, George Glover and Louis Doyle shared the spoils with Pershore, one Gold and one Silver medal apiece!
In the 13/14 age group, the girls were in fine form with Charlotte Hall, Ellie McGinnes, Yasemin Tayar and Emily Stancer finishing 2nd and 3rd in the Medley and Freestyle relays respectively but a very inexperienced boys team of Kai Gooden-Morris, Harvey Lloyd, Sean Mahan and Aaron Cook missed out on the medals, though their 4th in the Freestyle relay proved invaluable in the overall team competition.
In the 15/16 age group, Worcester dominated totally, the teams of Sophie Monks, Caitlin Adair, Lucy Clayton and Samantha Gearey plus Ben Holmes, William Hadley, Sam Hall, Oscar van Vuren and Matthew Redfern finishing a long way ahead of all their rivals to win a brace of Gold medals each.
In the 17-24 age group, Worcester were again unstoppable and all but for a DQ in the Ladies Freestyle Relay, would have made it another clean sweep with Eloise van Vuren, Sophie Groves, Lizzie Bentley and Emma Lovesey plus Anthony Redfern, Luke McCluskey, Mike Adair and James Allen a class apart.
However, huge credit should also go the Club’s Masters swimmers…
In the twelve Masters events, Worcester racked up 8 medals… six Gold and two Silver… with every single Master winning at least one… and without the contribution of Tracey Tayar, Orla Mahanta, Emma Armstrong, Alex Pritchard, Alison Etheridge, Malcolm Latta, Paul Tainty, John Priiden, Andy Shepherd, Steve Yates, Ewan Martin, Oliver Leaper, Robin Williams and Joel Smith, the Club could not possibly have won the overall Championships… thank you and well done!
