After 3 weekends and 14 sessions of swimming, the 2017 Herts County Championships drew to a close on Sunday with the long distance events before the noisiest session of them all; the relays! And there was much to celebrate for Hemel. Alice Fender won the championship gold in the 800 free as well as taking silver in her age group in the 400 free with Grace Cawley winning her 5th gold medal of the competition in the 400 free setting a new age group club record in the process. Georgia Purkis won bronze in the 400 free and Sam Gaines broke his own 400 IM age group record, breaking the 5 minute barrier in the process. Holly Robinson won bronze in both the 400 IM and 800 free, setting new age group records in both as well as smashing a 6 year old record in the 400 IM by over 7 seconds.
In the relays there were golds for the 12-13 girls medley team of Millie Anderton, Tilly Beckwith, Millie Herbert and Emily Young and the girls 14-15 free team of Izzy Anderton, Charlotte Hingston, Shona McKenna and Georgia Purkis who also took silver in the medley event. The boys open relay of Jack Christie, Joe Gillam, Josh Gaines and Jack Spence won silver in both their events, agonisingly losing out on gold by less than a second in both races in a quite fantastic finish to the competition.