Alnwick Dolphins swim to glory at the Northumberland and County Durham County Swimming Championships
A team from Alnwick Dolphins has been taking part in the Northumberland and Durham County Swimming Championships at Sunderland Aquatic Centre over the past few weeks.
This competition takes in the fastest swimmers in Northumberland, County Durham, Tees Valley and Tyne and Wear, and includes some of the top young athletes in Great Britain.
The Alnwick Dolphins, proudly sponsored by Alncom, had 22 swimmers qualify this year, aged from 10 to 18 years old.
The club came 14th in the 10 to 14-year-olds category and eighth in the 15 years and over category out of nearly 40 clubs in the region, achieving six silver and five bronze medals overall.
The medallists included 12-year-old Matilda Wilson, who won bronze in the 200m breaststroke and bronze in the 50m freestyle in a time of 29.94 seconds, breaking 30 seconds for the first time.
She also qualified for numerous finals and came agonisingly close to medals in several events, as well as smashing a club record which had stood for more than 20 years.
Ten-year-old Archie Brown, at his first county championships, won five silver medals – in the 50m and 100m freestyle and the 50m, 100m and 200m backstroke. His 50m freestyle time of 30.62 seconds ranks him third in his age group in Great Britain.
He also reached numerous finals and achieved top 10 finishes in other events.
Sandy Brown, 14, won three bronze medals – in 400m freestyle, 200m backstroke and 200m individual medley.
He won silver in the 800m freestyle and qualified for numerous finals. He was pipped into fourth place on the touch in the 200m freestyle.
Also in contention for medals were: Faye Campbell, who came eighth in the 100m breaststroke and was reserve for the 100m breaststroke final; Felicity Oliva, who was a finalist in the 100m backcrawl; Jamie Hodson was fifth in the 50m breaststroke; Tom Robinson was in the 100m breaststroke final; Andrew Batley came sixth in the 50m freestyle, breaking 30 seconds long course for the first time, and seventh in the 50m breaststroke; Harriet Oldfield came fourth in the 50m breaststroke by a fraction of a second, seventh in the 50m freestyle and fifth in the 100m breaststroke, and was reserve for five other finals; Ed Brown came sixth in the 400m freestyle, seventh in the 200m individual medley and seventh in the 100m freestyle in a personal best time of 54.58 seconds. Unfortunately, he missed his best event, the 200m freestyle, due to injury.
There were also super swims from Maddie Spours, Jess Irvine, Edward Gale, Ella Wynne, Emma Owen, Abbie Potrac, William Oliver, Finley Waugh and Oscar Dennis – who had five top 15 finishes.
There was a fantastic team spirit at what was a really enjoyable and high-level meet.
The final part of the county championships is a relay team event taking place next weekend (March 1-2) in Sunderland.
Alnwick Dolphins is taking a team of 43 swimmers and is hoping to do as well as last year, when they qualified for finals in every event.