Royal Tunbridge Wells Monson Swimming Club’s (Monson) Swimmers enjoyed continued success over the weekend as they competed on several fronts after a short break from competition.

Bexley Level 1 Long Course Open

Crystal Palace was the venue for the Bexley Long Course Level 1 Open Meet. Beth Hathaway continued her improvement with two gold’s in the 16 and over age group in the 50m and 400m Freestyles and two silvers in the 100m and 200m Freestyle where she was narrowly beaten by Bulgarian Olympian Ekaterina Avramova in 58.61 and 2:07.44 respectively. Beth improved on her national qualifying times (NQT) in the 100m and 200m events and achieved the 50m time to give her the full set of Freestyle NQT’s 50m through to 800m for this summer’s National Youth Championships.

Monson’s breaststrokers continued to excel with wins for Emily Das (10 years) and Annabel Guye-Johnson (13 years) in the 200m event. Annabel recorded the fastest time of all the age groups competing by four seconds in the 200m and went on to win her age group 100m breaststroke despite the effects of a heavy cold. In the Individual Medley events Caitlin Fearon (12 years) won gold in the 200m event improving her NQT entry while Charlotte Chapman (14 years) took a well earned silver in the gruelling 400m event.

There were also top 8 finishes for: Emily Das 100m Breaststroke 5th; Caitlin Fearon 100m Backstroke 6th, 200m Backstroke 6th and 200m Freestyle 4th; Annabel Guye-Johnson 50m Freestyle 6th; Charlotte Chapman 100m Freestyle 7th; Beth Hathaway 100m Backstroke 8th; Josh Harrison (14 years) 400m Freestyle 4th; George Hinton (14 years) 100m Backstroke 4th; Callum Ryan (16 years) 100m Backstroke 7th, 200m Backstroke 4th and 200m Freestyle 8th; Also competing for Monson were Stephanie Andrews (12 years) and Mia Burns (11 years).

Director of swimming Kim Longland was especially pleased and commented “We are still in heavy training and I didn’t expect to swim that well so the medal haul was also pleasing as most of our swimmers were competing out of age at the bottom of double age groups”.
Ryan and Leman outstanding at Aldershot

Monson competed on a second front with 19 young swimmers at the Bracknell and Wokingham SC Level 3 LC Meet held at the Aldershot Garrison Sports Centre. Many of the RTW swimmers attending have not experienced a 50m pool before, and were slightly nervous but soon overcame their fears achieving 67 top six finish’s and amassing an impressive medal haul amassing 12 Gold medals, 14 Silver and 13 Bronze from 106 starts.

Ella Ryan (11 years) and Thomas Leman (10 years) had an outstanding meet with Ella taking four Gold medals in the 50m, 100m and 200m Backstroke and 100 Freestyle and added silver in the 200 Freestyle and a bronze in the 50m Breaststroke. Thomas reigned supreme in his age group Breaststroke events taking Gold in 50m, 100m and 200m events and adding Silver from the 100 Freestyle and a further three Bronze’s.

Lucy Reeves (10 years) and Jacob Colman (14 years) both amassed an individual haul of six medals highlighted by Gold in the 100m Butterfly for Lucy and 50m Butterfly for Jacob. Ami-Louise King (12 years) won Gold in the 50m Backstroke and added silver in the 50m Freestyle. There was gold for Simon Newton (13 years) in the 50m Butterfly supplemented with a further two bronze medals. There were further gold’s for Monson when Charlotte Sholes (13 years) won the 50m butterfly and Stephanie Andrews (12 years) in the 50m Breaststroke. Charlotte adding silver in the 100m event

There were further medals for Monson via Anna Wessels (12 years) taking Silver in the 50m breaststroke, Matthew Chadwick (18 years) who took three medals in the older age group including a well earned silver in the gruelling 200m butterfly. Joshua Cruz (12 years) achieved personal best (PB’s) times on all 6 events swum over the weekend and was rewarded with two Silver and two Bronze medals for his efforts. Daniel Solomon (11 years) also took a bronze in the 50m Backstroke.

Also competing for Monson and achieving PB’s were: Anna Leman (9 years), Issy Wessels (9 years), Alice Killick (12 years), Monique Gunther (12 years), Toby Dray (11 years), and Cameron Duncan (13 years). Emma Sneddon also competed at the Crawley Spring Long Course Level 3 Meet held at the K2 Leisure Centre.

Monson will next be in action in two weeks time at the ASA British Gas South East Region Youth Championships to be held at the K2 leisure Centre in Crawley.