Over the May Day bank holiday, a team of Severnside Tritons qualifiers competed at the South West Region Youth Summer Championships in Plymouth, writes Iain Garett.
On the first day, Emily Johnson won the first Tritons medal of the Championships, consolidating her place in the Regional rankings, with a bronze in the 400m free, and followed this in the second session gaining a place in the final of the 200 individual medley, where she finished fourth.
Also in the 200IM, Caitlin Roberts improved her long course best by just over half a second. Noah De N’Yeurt dipped under 29 seconds for the first time in the 50 free, and Toby Platt also improved his best time. In the girls’ 50 free, both Eve Herbert-Jarvis and Rebecca McCoubrie both recorded their first long course swims under the 30-second mark, and Evie O’Connell was a mere half-second over her own best.
It was another busy day in the pool for Tritons swimmers on Sunday. First up was the 50m breaststroke in which Noah, Toby and Rebecca all posted PBs, Evie was just 0.06 seconds off of hers and Jess Hussey was just under a second above. Emily made the 16-year-old final where she placed 10th. Next came the 100m free with Alex Collin recording a new PB, breaking the minute mark for the first time, and Emily making her second final of the day, finishing in joint 4th place. Eve swam a strong 400IM in the last event of the morning, finishing in a credible 6th place in the 15-year-old age group.
In the afternoon session, Rebecca improved her PB in the heats of the 50m back, and Jake Garett made the boys final where he finished 10th. Grace Bevan and Eve qualified for the final of the 15yo 200m butterfly, and both improved their heat times when swimming again later.
On the final day of racing, it was Emily who got things going by qualifying for the 200 free final, and proceeding to claim a bronze medal later in the day. In the 50 fly, Alex set a new PB, and Grace and Rebecca were just outside of their own. In the final heats of the morning session Ethan Courts, Rebecca and Caitlin all improved their previous best times in the 100 back.
The final session of the weekend saw the distance qualifiers of all age groups compete in the 800 free. For the boys, Charlie Amter-Collins was only half a second over his PB, and Alex took nearly 5 seconds off of his. For the girls, Amy Jones took over 3 seconds off of her best to place 4th in the 13-year-old age group, and Olalla Richards improved her time by nearly 8 seconds, whilst Eve was merely 0.3 seconds above hers. In the final heat of the day, Emily picked up her third bronze medal of the Championships, and also set a new club record with a time of 9:21.12.
