Alnwick Dolphins celebrate success of four swimmers selected for top-class competitions

The high level competitions were held over a fortnight at the end of July at Sheffield’s Ponds Forge Arena and Rother Valley Country Park.

The Nationals represent the highlight of the swimmers’ year with the top swimmers across the country gaining qualification by way of their national rankings.

The times have to be set during an eight-week qualifying period starting in March, which places pressure on the swimmers to deliver during the window.

Competition is high and just to qualify for the Nationals is a huge achievement.

First up was Ed Brown. He was selected for the Northumberland and Durham Performance Club (NDPP) as a member of the 4 x 200m freestyle relay. Ed has been on good form this season, going under two minutes for this distance, which earned him a place on the team.

He anchored the relay home for a total time of 7.43.12 ranking them an amazing 11th overall in the Open category against Performance Centres including Loughborough University.

At the English Summer Nationals the following week, Sandy Brown and Harriet Oldfield represented NDPP and Alnwick Dolphins.

This was Sandy’s first appearance at the Summer Nationals, his place being guaranteed by some excellent swims in the regional championships in May.

Sandy qualified for the 200m, 400m and 800m freestyle events. These are tough swims and the standard of competition is very high.

To qualify for all three of the longer freestyle events shows Sandy’s prowess at all the freestyle distances.

He put in three very accomplished swims and is the first Alnwick Dolphins male qualifier for the Nationals in recent years.

Harriet, a qualifier at last year’s British champs and English Nationals had a slightly disrupted build-up in the qualifying window but made the times in the 100m breaststroke, 50m breaststroke and 50m freestyle.

She swam a solid 100m breaststroke early in the week, just short of her personal best, and followed this up with a strong 50m freestyle.

She took part in the 50m breaststroke on the Friday. Harriet is a talented sprinter and made it through the morning heat and into the final with a very strong time of 35.59 seconds, placing fourth.

As all true racers do, she upped her game in the final with an all-time best swim.

An explosive start to the race put her right up at the front and she kept that speed and power through to the end, touching in 34.83 seconds in joint second for a fantastic silver medal.

This was a great result for Harriet and the club, which is currently going from strength to strength.

Thirteen-year-old Emilia Waugh took to the open water at the National Open Water Age Group Championships having qualified with a super bronze medal in the County Championships. She swam an outstanding non-wetsuit 3km swim in a time of 45 minutes and 45 seconds ranking 22nd female in her age group in Great Britain.

These achievements are only possible with the support of their team mates, coaches and volunteers at Alnwick Dolphins, who are very proud of them all.