A small but elite band of Royal Tunbridge Wells Monson Swimming Club (Monson) members braved the elements to compete at the Killerwhales Level 1 Open Meet held at the Basildon Sports Complex in Essex last weekend.

Monson Club Captain Beth Hathaway (17 years) was in fine form and came away from the first day of competition with Gold in both the 16&Over 100m and 200m Freestyle events. Beth’s time in the 100m was a new season best for her and an improvement on her National time achieved a couple of weeks ago. Beth dominated the 200m event leading from start to finish and returned for the second day full of confidence and opened with a win in the 400m Freestyle again imposing from the start and winning by a considerable margin.

Later Beth competed in the 50m Freestyle but was just piped on this occasion by one of home swimmers. The fastest eight swimmers in the 50m event then advanced to ‘skins event’ where swimmers repeatedly sprint on a short turn-around time, with the slowest eliminated after each round. Seven 50m sprints later Beth had her revenge on the Killerwhale’s swimmer, beating her in the final head-to-head to take the skins crown.

Savanna Jemmet (14 years) also competed on both days and comfortably won both the 14&Under 100m and 200m Backstroke events for the 13/14 year age group. Savannas 100m time broke the long standing club senior record of Monson starlet Clare Stevens.

Savanna was joined in the medals by team mate Charlotte Chapman (14 years) who finished second behind Savanna in the 200m backstroke. Charlotte completed her set of medals with Gold in the 200m Freestyle and Bronze in the 100m Freestyle before adding a further Silver in the 200m Individual Medley.

In the younger age category Monson were also dominant where they competed with Caitlin Feraon completing a golden double in the 100m and 200m Freestyle races and Annabel Guye-Johnson taking Gold in the 100m Breaststroke.

There was also a very creditable fourth place for Josh Harrison, who narrowly missed bronze with a very well paced 400m Freestyle but was rewarded with a Long Course Personal Best (PB).

Director of Swimming, Kim Longland was pleased with the performances commenting “We are swimming very well un-rested and at present everything is going according to plan. I believe we could have gone faster at the weekend but in a couple of the swims we were out on our own and needec a result to push us that little bit further. We again went inside National Qualifying time’s long course on five occasions and had two very near misses and that is good swimming at this time of year by anyone’s standards”

Meanwhile Men’s Captain Callum Ryan was in action at Medway Park, competing in the Kent Schools Swimming Champions and continued his good form winning the 100m Backstroke and taking Silver in the 100m Breaststroke.

There were also finalist spots for Charlotte Chapman (100m Butterfly) and Sam Fenton (100m Breaststroke). Relative new comer to competitive swimming, Ami-Louise King also impressed with a massive seven second PB in the 100m Backstroke.

Monson will next be in action at the England South Zonal Meet at Crawley next weekend. Anyone interested in the clubs activities should visit the club web site at www.rtwmonson.org.