Severnside Tritons age group qualifiers returned to South West Regional Competition at Hengrove Pool in Bristol, writes Iain Garett.
Amy Jones claimed gold and two silvers and fellow 13-year-old James Collin with a bronze.
First up on Saturday were Amy Jones and Olalla Richards in the 200 freestyle, with Amy just missing out on a final place and Olalla improving her PB, and in the boys 100 breaststroke Stirling Rolls improved his converted short course best. Amy swam just over PB in the 50 fly heats to qualify for the final, going on to claim her first medal, a silver, in a closely contested race with just 0.08 seconds splitting the first two places.
In the 14-year-old category, Amelia B took nearly half a second off of her previous best time. James Collin won a bronze medal (13yo) in the grueling 400IM, improving his best by 4 seconds, and Charlie Amter-Collins posted an improved converted short course time. In the same event, George Pearson finished in a credible 12th place in the 14-year-old group after recently returning from injury.
In the second Saturday session, James qualified for the final of the 100 fly in which he placed 6th, and Jorge Rey took 4 seconds of his recent best. In the last heats of the day Holly Harvie-Pullin bettered her previous best in the 200 breaststroke by a massive 7 seconds to qualify for the final (11-12yo), in which she finished 7th, with Olalla also qualifying for the 14yo final, in which she set a new best time, also finishing in 7th.
On Sunday, the last day of racing, the opening honours went to George Pearson with a PB in the 200IM followed by Holly and Amy in the 50 back; Holly improved her converted short course time and Amy was just over PB, qualifying in 3rd place for the final, before going on the claim Tritons first gold medal of the Championships, also breaking the club record in the process with a time of 32.49. Next up James made another final in the 100 free, placing 7th, before Holly took 5 seconds off of her previous best in the 400IM, and took 10th place overall in the 11-12yo age group.
In the afternoon heats session, Amy continued her outstanding weekend with another final place in the 100 fly, and taking a silver later in the day, in another Club record time. In the boys 50 free Jorge broke the 29 second barrier for the first time with a time of 28.57. For the girls, Olalla set a new PB in the heats of the 200 back to qualify in 8th, before improving her position to 7th in the final. In the last event of the day, the boys 200 breaststroke, Stirling R bettered his previous best time.
After a busy three weeks of racing at the Regional Championships the swimmers claimed a total of one gold, two silver and four bronze medals. To even qualify for the Regional Championships is a great achievement, but to return with medals, final appearances and personal best times shows the level of commitment of the swimmers in training.
