Royal Tunbridge Wells Monson Swimming Club (RTWM) were in action on several fronts over the past weekend with some outstanding results from their young and ever improving squad.

The Youth and Age Group elite swimmers travelled to the Aldershot Garrison Pool in Berkshire for the South East Region Short Course Winter Championships attracting the the cream of the South East of England.

Thirteen year old Savanna Jemmett, who was competing four years out of age as a junior, excelled in the Backstroke events. In the 50m Backstroke Senior final Savanna qualifed fourth fastest and maintained her position in the final to win the Junior title in 30.94 secs.

In the 100m event she finished seventh in the final after having achieved national age group qualifying (NQT) time in the heat of 1:05.70 ensuring that she goes to the ASA National Age Group Champions to be held in Sheffield this summer for the third consecutive year.

Team mate Beth Hathaway joined Savanna in the Ladies Backstroke final, however her main success of the weekend came in her preferred Freestyle events. In the 50m Freestyle Beth finished fifth in a short course Personal Best (PB) of 27:34 taking the Bronze in the Junior event and narrowly missing Gold by just over a tenth of a second.

The 100m event saw a fourth place in the senior ranks and a Silver Junior medal. Beths time was inside the NQT on conversion to long course, however a change in entry conditions means that, unlike the age groupers, Beth must achieve her times Long Course for next year. The 200m Freestyle saw another fourth place in the open ranks and a Junior Bronze and another time, which along with the 50m swim were only marginally outside NQT standards. After four heat swims and four finals Beth’s last race of the weekend was a gruelling 400m Freestyle and a gutsy swim from a very tired swimmer earnt her the Senior Bronze and Junior Silvers respectifly.

Twelve year old Caitlin Fearon, along with team mate Annabel Guye-Johnson were the youngest swimmers at the competition, sometimes competing against women double their age. Both swimmers made an impression despite their apparent lack of experience at Senior events finishing in the top half of the results in all their races. Caitlin had an exceptional weekend achieving NQT’s in the 100m, 200m and 400m Freestyle events by conserably margins. Annabel, a breaststroke specialist improved on all her times for the 50m, 100m and 200m events and is again homing in on the difficult NQT’s for areturn to Sheffield.

Boys Team Captain Callum Ryan was not to be out done and put together a string of outstanding swims. Callum achieved five and seven second personal bests in the 400m Individual Medley and 400m Freestyle events and an imppressive 50m breaststroke swim of 32.92 set a new Senior Club Record and very creditable 9th place in the Junior event. His best was to come in the last race of the weekend where he recorded 2:13.84, a massive five second PB and a new club Junior Record. Callum’s time is within striking distance of the Youth NQT and will obviously be a focus for him now over the next few months.

“ I am absolutely delighted with the results. We are coming off the back of some hard training and a very sucessful block of club championships. To get so many NQT’s this early in the season , albeit short course is a very good sign and hopefully an indication of better things latter in the season.” Said Kim Longland, Monson’s Director of Swimming. “The younger girls were outstanding and showed maturity way above their years, it is great to see Beth returning to form and she put together a great set swims as well as Callum emerging as a potential National swimmer. I know we can still improve a lot of things but there are some ‘very green shoots’ appearing at Monson.”

Devlopment Swimmers at Medway Park

At the same time as the SER Winter Championships Academy coach, Simon Killick travelled to Medway Park in Gillingham with a large group of Development swimmers chasing Kent County Qualifying times at the Gravesend & Northfleet Level 3 Winter Meet.

From 95 starts RTWM swimmers achieved 17 Gold medal performances, 15 Silver, 14 Bronze and a further 26 top 6 finishes. More importantly the swimmers also achieved 26 Kent County ASA (KCASA) Championships QT’s, which was the main purpose of attending.

The controversial decision to require swimmers to achieve QT’s in ASA licenced meets has proved difficult for many swimmers and parents as many meets suitable for qualification have been over subscribed and other commitments have made achievement of a full range of times for the BAGCAT events very difficult and will result in some swimmers (who have a achieved QT’s) not swimming at next years Championships.

“It is a great shame that some swimmers will not be able to compete.” Said Kim Longland, “However I underestand why the county have made this decision to insist on ratified times for entry”.

Swimmers achieving qualfying times at this meet by: Thomas Leman (4), Simon Newton (3), Josh Harrison (4), Anna Leman 1, Ella Ryan (3), Sam Fenton (2), Charlotte Scholes (1), Joe Stevens (1), Emily Das (1) Lucy Reeves (1) and George Hinton (5).

George Hinton who was on top form at the weekend not only achieved 4 Gold medal performances and 5 Kent QT’s but demonstrated his continuing improvment by also achieving a South East Regional QT.

Gold medalists at Gravesend were: Thomas Leman (10 years): 100m and 200m Breast; Mia Burns (10 years) 100m IM; Charlotte Scholes (13 Years): 100m and 200m Fly; Simon Newton (13 Years): 50m Back; George Hinton (13 Years): 100m Free, 50m Fly, 200m Back, 100m IM; Josh Harrison (14 Years): 50m and 100m Back, 400m Free; Sam Fenton (15 Years): 50m and 200m Breast; Jo Stevens (16 & Over): 50m Fly, 100m Back.

Third Front

Stephanie Andrews (11 years) also competed at the weekend at the Haslemere Open and enjoyed similar fortunes with a Gold and Bronze in the 50m and 100m breaststroke events.

RTW Monson swimmers are competing again next week at the National Arena League Round Three at Sevenoaks. Anyone interested in the clubs activities or in joining RTWM should consult the New Member Enquiry Page on the Club website: www.rtwmonson.org for further information.