Twenty-two Hemel swimmers attended the Maxwell meet at Aylesbury last weekend and from just over 100 swims clocked an impressive 21 first places, 36 seconds and thirds, and 53 new personal best times. 17 summer regional qualifying times were set or bettered and 10 new Club records were set. To cap it all, Tony Gaines set a 5 second PB in the 200 fly to set a new age group club record and qualify for the World Masters Championships in Budapest in August; he’s not the only one of our Masters to qualify, but he is the only one to qualify in this particularly gruelling event! On a good day for the Gaines’, younger son Sam set an 11 second PB in the 200 breast to smash the previous club age group record set six years ago by over 7 seconds. Meanwhile at Wycombe, Jack Christie set a new open Club record in the 50 breast.
Age group records were also set at Maxwell by Alice Fender (50 free, 100 free, 100 breast and 200 IM), Georgia Purkis (200 breast), and Joe Coldwell who broke his existing records in the 50 and 200 breast both set only two months ago with a particularly strong performance in the 200 which he improved by over 4 seconds.
First places were achieved by Izzie Anderton (50 back and 100 free), Joe Coldwell (50 and 200 breast), Jonny Farrow (200 fly), Alice Fender (50 breast, 200 IM, 50 fly and 100 free), Tony Gaines (200 fly), Sam Gaines (50 fly, 50 and 100 breast and 200 IM), Charlotte Hingston (100 back), Keelin McKenna (50 back), and Shona McKenna (100 back, 50 and 100 free and 50 fly).
Others who achieved second and third places were Milly Anderton, Seyi Bankole, Lewis Clark, Kyle Holmes, Becky Hopper, Manas Kubal, Georgia Purkis, Rebecca Sewell and Sam Ward.
Milly Anderson had a particulalry good meet with 7 PBs from 8 swims including an over 6 second improvement in her 200 free, and over 4 second improvements in her 200 IM and 200 back. Lewis Clark set PBs in all 4 of his swims with a particularly impressive 4 second improvement in his 200 breast, whilst Manas Kubal also improved his times in all four of his swims with an excellent 7 second PB in his 200 back. Finally Sam Ward set an 8 second PB in his 200 back.