13 swimmers from Flitwick Dolphins travelled the short distance to the Luton Inspire swimming pool for the East Region Winter Regionals held on 5-7th November.
The swimmers competing were:
Francesca Baber Ida Corcoran, Lily Farr, Sophie Fowler, Jake Hickmott, Adam Holmes, Megan Jones, Eloisa Miller, Isaac Moon, Prem Parmar, Harrison Shaw Abigail Wickens and Lauren Young.
In the multi-classification events, Ida excelled in her swimming, achieving a silver regional medal in the 200m individual medley. Later on, two amazing swims from Abigail Wickens: a gold medal in the 100m backstroke (with a brilliant 12 seconds improvement on her existing personal-best time) as well as a silver medal for her 400m freestyle event.
Megan Jones swam the 50m butterfly with a new personal best time of 31.30. Quick on the heels of that swim came the 50 free with Megan once again achieving a new personal best time of 28.86. For Megan that was the first time she had ever gone under 29 seconds. Her mum had this to say: “It was amazing to watch Megan swim most specifically in her 50 freestyle event!!” With Megan adding “It was a really good weekend”.
Francesca Baber competed in 5 individual events: 50m butterfly, 50m freestyle, 100m freestyle, 200m freestyle and 400m freestyle achieving new personal best times in 4 of them as well as achieving new Flitwick Dolphin club records in both the age 15 and open age group categories. Her best performance came in the 100m freestyle where she qualified for open age group final and swam 58.27, qualifying her for the short course National Championships to be held in Sheffield in December.
Jake Hickmott swam in the 50, 100 and 200 m backstroke achieving new personal best times in the 50m Back – 30.43 and the 200m Back – 2.20.58 as well as forming part of the backstroke section of the Medley relay along with Prem Parmar, Harrison Shaw and Isaac Moon who, as well as taking part in the relay, swam in 3 individual events – 50m freestyle, 50m fly and 100m freestyle, achieving a new personal best time in the 50m fly.
The girl’s 4 x 50m freestyle relay team consisting of Lily Farr, Megan Jones, Eloisa Miller and Francesca Baber exceeded their expectations finishing in a time of 1.54.56 which gave them a top 10 finish.
The weekend’s swimming as brilliantly summed up by head Coach, Nigel Halford:
“A wonderful weekend at The East Region Short Course Championships with Coach Louise King and a great bunch of swimmers who were a credit to the club. Highlights were: Francesca’s PBs on the 50, 100 and 200 free, with her second Nationals QT on the 100; Megan’s face when she saw her time for the 50 free; Eloisa under 3 minutes on the 200 breaststroke; Jake’s PB on the 200 backstroke; Adam’s on the 200 fly; Isaac back under 27 sec for his 50 free; Prem giving it everything on his breaststroke; as always, Lauren and Sophie heading back towards their best on their 200s back and fly; Harrison apparently cruising to a sub-26 on his 50 free; medals for Ida and Abi, and Lily leading out a senior relay team at a major championships. I could go on, but the relays summed it up (Lily, Megan, Eloisa and Francesca; Jake, Prem, Isaac and Harrison, with Adam supporting): everyone having fun and giving absolutely everything to fly the flag for the club against the best swimmers in the region. All we lacked was spectators and I hope the live stream was a decent substitute for actually being there!”
Flitwick Dolphins Swimming Club are immensely proud of our swimmers.
To have been able to achieve so much after the trials and tribulations of lockdown and the interruptions to training and competitions because of the pandemic is a fantastic achievement. It is certainly evident in all the squads at the club the successes that are taking place as all levels of competitions resume and all ages of the club swimmers excel at their events.
Dolphin’s swimmers can also be commended for their outstanding support for each other; for the coaches, the most rewarding part is seeing all their hard work with their squads paying off and swimmers reaching their full potential, whatever the level of competition they are taking part in.