British International Disability Swimming Championships

Two Warriors of Warrington swimmers set lifetime bests in the water at the British International Disability Swimming Championships over the last weekend of April at Ponds Forge, Sheffield.  Adele Maguire and Coral Farrell, both aged 11, also clocked times that were fast enough to qualify for the World Class Podium Potential Programme. Coral competed in seven events, making two youth finals and narrowly missing out on a medal on her way to fourth in the 400m freestyle final. She was 10th too in the 100m butterfly. Adele swam in four events, pipping her clubmate to 9th place overall in the butterfly. 

Congratulations to both swimmers regarding your ongoing success!

Top Visiting Club success for Warriors at Birmingham!

The Warriors took a small but quality team to the Birmingham Open Meet over Easter and stole the coveted prize of Top Visiting Club from under the noses of much larger local contingents from Boldmere and the City of Coventry.   With six points being awarded for a win down to one point for a sixth place, Warriors topped the rankings with 474 points in total, over 100 points more than their nearest rivals. Stand-out performances came from Lewis McGhee who took Top Boy in the 9 to 10 years age group and Matty Crawley who was second in the 11 to 12 years category.  All the more impressive because both boys were swimming exclusively in the challenging Level 2 competition and together they contributed over a quarter of the team’s total points score. 

Although finals places did not count towards the overall points tally it was great to see Warriors swimmers qualifying for the Level 3 finals throughout the meet.  Special mention for Fiona Healy and Ricky Santander who qualified for multiple finals on every night of the competition.  And all of the following swimmers won Gold, Silver or Bronze medals over the course of the four day meet:

Lewis McGhee; Matty Crawley; George Houghton; Ricky Santander; James Forrest; Connor Healy; Nicolas Hoekstra; Jonathon Skilling; Alex Watkinson; Andrew Trevor; Nathan Hill; Logan Chadwick; Fiona Healy; Caitlin Chalmers; Emily Eden; Jessica Swindells; Amy Sanderson; Jess Burke; Bethan Catchpole.  Congratulations to you all!

The icing on the cake was seeing our swimmers collecting the Trophy from none other than Nick Gillingham, double Olympic medallist and former World, European and Commonwealth Champion!  Photos to follow!

Cheshire Championships success for Warriors!

Warriors of Warrington Swimming Club have had yet another very successful Cheshire Championships in 2013.  The event took place over the first three weekends in March, and gave swimmers form the club the opportunity to deliver many fantastic individual and team performances.

The championships involved all of the best swimmers and clubs from the County, so competition was fierce in all events.  Warriors rose to the challenge, and achieved an overall 1st place in the Wallace Aggregate Trophy and 3^rd place in the Hugh Laughland Age Group Aggregate Trophy.

There were too many brilliant individual performances to list them all in a report, but there were some achievements that deserve a special mention. Top of this list are the 8 swimmers who between them broke a total of 23 County Championships Records for their respective age groups.  A hearty congratulations therefore goes to David Richardson, Andrew McLay, Brendan Spencer, Kathleen Dawson, Hugh Takemoto, Shannon Campbell, Oliver Houghton and George Hill.  The boys 15/16 years medley relay team also achieved a new record for the Championships.

The championships also awarded a Top Boy and Girl award for the first time.  Kathleen Dawson was awarded with Top Girl for her perfomances - her 4 record times actually broke 12 records, as they broke the Age Group, Junior Ladies and Senior Ladies records - a remarkable achievement!  David Richardson also came a very close 2nd in the Top Boy award.

Warriors also achieved great results in the individual age group BAGCAT classifications.  1^st place finishes were achieved by George Hill (10 yrs), William Camden (11 yrs), Shannon Campbell (13 yrs), Bethany Young (15 yrs) and Leah Evans (16 yrs).  This represents a huge achievement to finish top of the lists in your County, so another huge well done goes out to these swimmers.

Finally, we had over 50 swimmers representing our Club at this event.  It takes a massive level of hard work and dedication from swimmers, coaches and parents/guardians to even achieve the required times to qualify for this event, so we should feel immense pride as a Club to have such a dedicated following.  Well done to all at Warriors for continuing to ensure that we keep Warrington firmly on the swimming map!

NB  Detailed results for the event can be found under the Gala Results section of the website.

British Swimming International Meet 7th – 10th March 2013

An elite group of swimmers from Warriors of Warrington SC attended the British Swimming International meet last weekend with great success:

Leading the way was Kathleen Dawson who won the Girls’ Junior 50m Backstroke, was 3^rd in the 100m Backstroke and 4^th in the 200m Backstroke. Kathleen broke the Scottish Senior 50m Backstroke National record.  Kathleen achieved 3 European Junior Qualification times. And we are delighted to confirm that she has been selected for the British team for the up and coming European Junior Championships, to be held in Poland in July.

Matthew Domville, in his first national championships, had a fantastic outing making the 18 and under final of the boys 200m butterfly at the age of 16 and coming a more than respectful 8^th place in a personal best time of 2:08.96

David Richardson made his first Junior 18 and under final in the 400m Individual Medley which he finished just outside his best time in 4:44.59 but a very credible 10^th place for his first International Swimming Meet.

14 year old Oliver Houghton showed his future potential by reaching the 18 and under 50 metre backstroke final , in a personal best time of 28.22.  This swim shows that Oliver has the potential to swim at the highest level in Great Britain.

Warriors success at National Junior & Youth Disability Championships

Warriors of Warrington swimmers Adele Maguire and Coral Farrell went to the world renowned Ponds Forge International Sports Centre, Sheffield to compete against the country’s finest young disability swimmers last weekend.  The 11 year old girls swam in the 10-13 year age group and came away with an impressive total of 20 medals. 

Adele managed some substantial Personal Best performances, winning 1 Gold, 3 Silver and 3 Bronze Medals in the process.  Coral also had an outstanding event, managing to medal in every individual event and both team relays, giving her a haul of 9 Gold and 4 Silver Medals. 

They both helped the North West team to victory in  the 400m Medley, with Adele swimming Butterfly & Coral the Breaststroke, they beat the 2nd place East Region by nearly 17 seconds.

The Girls are now looking forward to the upcoming British Gas International in Leeds & the British International Disability Championships in April.  A huge well done from all at the Club for their continued success!