The fourth session of this year’s Club Championships comprised arguably the toughest indoor race on the books – the 400 IM. 45 swimmers took part with Alice Fender setting a new Open Club record and Jo Lee-Pearce and Mattias Morse setting new age group records. There was some excellent racing with the longer distance really emphasising the relative strengths in strokes between swimmers.
Perhaps not surprisingly for a race swum so infrequently there were lots of significant personal bests, notably a 43 second improvement by Freya Beresford, 30 seconds by Matthie Perrault, 24 seconds by Elliott Davies, 21 seconds by Ashley Coombs, 19 seconds by Dylan Kennell, 18 seconds by Millie Anderton and 15 seconds by Millie Herbert, Mabel Coldwell, Mattias Morse and Lewis Clark. Particular mention should also be made of those who swam the event for the first time – Maisie Adams, Kate Cresswell, Freya Goad, Joel Green, Freya McDonagh, Henry Newbury-Kemp, Georgie Pearce, Rebecca Sewell and Nathan Whiting.