The swimmers of Exeter City Swimming Club enjoyed their greatest success for a number of years at the recent National Age Group, Youth & Senior Championships held at Sheffield. Six swimmers swam 18 races through a range of events and amassed a total of 21 pb’s from their heats and final swims on their way to collecting one medal and seven finalist places.

 

Leading the charge at Age Groups was 13yr old Jess Twose who set a pb in the heats of the 100m backstroke to qualify 2^nd for the final and then reduced her pb again by 0.8sec in the final to win the silver with a time of 1:06.29. Two years ago she placed 15^th at Nationals and a year ago she rose to 5^th. Jess also set a pb in the 100m freestyle to place 19^th in a time of 1:01.23.

 

George Fearnley, 13, has experienced phenomenal improvement during the last year and achieved his first ever National qualifying time in April. He went on to qualify in six events, but decided to swim in only five at Nationals due to the line-up of events. George was one of the younger swimmers in the 13yr age group, and despite racing against older competitors he made four finals recording a total of 9 pb’s – one every time he hit the water. George placed 7^th in both the 100m freestyle and 100m butterfly with times of 56.75 and 1:01.34 respectively, 8^th in the 200m individual medley in a time of 2:21.75, 9^th in the 200m freestyle in a time of 2:05.07, and 21^st in the 200m breaststroke in 2:45.42. With his range of swims George totalled enough points to place 12^th nationally in the British Age Group Category awards, which is an indication in the age group events of the overall ability of the competitors. This is the highest place by an Exeter swimmer since the introduction of the awards.

 

A National finalist last year, Alex Wooldridge, 18, successfully made the change from being a breaststroke swimmer last year to a fly swimmer this year. In the 50m butterfly he recorded a pb to reach his first ever senior final and recorded a time of 25.52, another pb, to place 9^th. In the 17/18 100m butterfly youth championship Alex progressed through the heats and semi-finals posting a pb each time reaching the final with 56.06, and then placed 8^th in the final. He also set a pb in the 200m butterfly with a time of 2:10.82 which plaed him as the 6^th quickest 18yr old at the meet, a pb in the 50m freestyle with 25.20 to place 28^th. He also swam the 100m freestyle placing the 29^th quickest time by an 18yr old and the 100m breaststroke in which he placed 15^th.

 

Liam Spruce, 16, had not made the National championships since the age of 11 and qualified for two events this year. In the 200m breaststroke he set a pb by over 5secs with a time of 2:31.01 to finish as 16^th in the 16yr old rankings, and in the 100m breaststroke he swam another pb of 1:09.12 to finish 22^nd.

 

Warren Barrett, 22, competing at only his second Nationals set a pb of 25.77 in the 50m butterfly to place 18^th – his highest ever placing. Connie Fearnley, 15, swimming in her first National event, almost equalled her pb with a time of 1:10.44 in the 100m backstroke to finish 32^nd in the 15yr old rankings.

 

Exeter coach Jon Randall was extremely pleased with the clubs showing at the event ‘this years results were outstanding and a marked improvement over the last few years. Overall we had 26 swims and posted a pb in 21 of them. That’s a great strike rate. I was impressed by the professional attitude of all our swimmers before, during and after their races.