Head Coaches Report

George Fearnley highlighted a cracking weekend of swimming at the Bournemouth open meet with his first
ever National qualifying time during the final session of the event. Attending the meet with a group of his fellow
Exeter City Swimming Club competitors the recently turned 13yr old had already swum to victory in the 50m
freestyle in 27.05 and posted a pb of 1:08.56 to take the 100m IM gold, placed 2nd behind the National
champion in the 100m freestyle, set a pb in the 100m butterfly in placing 2nd again to a National medallist, and
set another pb in the 200m IM this time finishing 3rd behind two National podium swimmers before he came
into his own in the 200m freestyle. Swimming a mature and superbly paced race George raced to the front on
the third 50m and surged on through the final 50m to record a time of 2:05.44 – 0.14 sec inside the NQT. He
then followed that momentous swim up with a quality victory in the 50m butterfly in a time of 29.26.



Connie Fearnley, 15, made it a family affair by capturing a treble in the backstroke events, her wins coming in
times of 32.78 for the 50m, 1:09.66 for the 100m and 2:28.87 for the 200m. Equalling her brother with four titles
Connie also stormed to victory in the 100m IM with a time of 1:12.52, as well as adding a silver in the 50m
freestyle.



National finalist Alex Wooldridge, 18, was also to clock up a host of wins with a clean sweep of the
breaststroke events in times of 32.01 for the 50m, 1:07.08 for the 100m and 2:28.54 for the 200m, in addition
to 1st in the 200m butterfly – where he was only 0.3 sec shy of the NQT. Alex also added to his medal haul with
a silver in both the 50m & 100m butterfly and a bronze in the 200m IM.



Exeter pair Simon Cooper & Liam Spruce, both 15, shared the breaststroke spoils between them with Simon
taking the 50m (33.05) and 100m (1:10.95) gold’s with Liam close behind in both events, and Liam finishing on
top in the 200m (2:34.42) and Simon 2nd. Liam was also to finish atop the podium in the 100m (1:05.60) &
200m (2:24.27), 2nd in the 200m IM and 3rd in the 50m freestyle. Simon clinched silver in the 100m butterfly
and bronze in the 100m freestyle.



15yr old Sally Whybra was coming off of some time out of the training pool, but still managed to swim to 2nd
place in the 100m & 200m backstroke and the 200m IM, as well as picking up the bronze from the 100m
butterfly.



Jade Webb, 11, swam a heavy programme of events throughout the weekend swimming a host of pb’s that
included a Western County qualifying time in the 200m backstroke and won the silver in the 100m butterfly and
bronze in the 50m backstroke. Harriet Stevens, 15, was another swimmer with a heavy programme of 11
evetns during the weekend, placing in the top 6 in eight of those events and picking up 3rd place in the 100m &
200m breaststroke and 100m IM races.



Elliott Randall, 12, collected bronze in both the 100m & 200m breaststroke and placed in the top 6 in three
other events. All of Elliotts swims during the meet were pb’s. 14yr old Sam Collett almost matched Elliott’s feat
in just missing out on a clean sweep of pb’s, but did notch up a 2nd place in the 200m backstroke and four
other top 6 ranked places. 13yr old George Roberts was swimming his first major event for the City team and
he showed great potential in improving all but one of his events capturing a top 6 place in all three breaststroke
swims including a silver in the 50m. Brad Pearce, 13, has recently been swimming pb’s every time he hits the
water and this meet was no different with all his swims being on pb time or better. Against tough competition
Brad made the podium on the 200m butterfly winning the bronze medal. The youngest member of the team was
10yr old Freddie Fearnley and although he only swam in two events during the weekend, both were in pb time,
and his 200m backstroke swim was a 12sec improvement and only just over a second outside of the Western
qualifying time.



For a small team of swimmers Exeter’s statistics for the meet were impressive with a total of 71 top 6 places
divided amongst the 13 swimmers, with a haul of 45 medals in the form of 18 gold, 15 silver and 12 bronze.
Exeter City coach Jon Randall was pleased with his charges performance ‘it’s not possible to always be rested
for a competition and we came here pretty tired, so the majority of our results were very good considering. For
some we’re aiming to be in top gear for the Western championships in May & June, and for others we’re
aiming to be rested and sharp at a meet in Sheffield late May. That’s when we need to be mentally switched
and ready to see what we can really do.’


 

Links

Devon County ASA

ASA SouthWest

British Swimming