With all targeted National Qualifying times already safely under their belt Royal Tunbridge Wells Monson Swimmers competed on three fronts last weekend in search of medals to add to their already impressive haul in 2013.

British Gas South East Region Age Group Championships

The man event of the weekend was the final sessions of this season’s British Gas ASA South East Regional Age Group Championships held at the K2 Leisure Centre in Crawley where Monson brought this year’s campaign tally to 6 gold, 2 silver, and 3 bronze medals.

Caitlin Fearon (12 years) led the way, successfully defending her 200m Freestyle title in an impressive 2:11.77 secs after first winning the 200m Individual Medley with the last couple of strokes of the race in 2:29.86. Caitlin also added silver in the 100m Freestyle and a bronze in the 400m Individual medley. All swims were Personal Best’s (PB) and new Monson Club Records (CR). Caitlin was also defending her BAGCAT’s title which is the event Victor Lodorum to find the best all round swimmer and based on points scored against a World Record standard. The programming this year was not kind to Caitlin as it is the heat times that score requiring her to swim fast heats and then race to hard for the championship in the final. Caitlin was placed third after the first weekend of competition by virtue of her two golds in the 400m and 800m Freestyle and a solid swim in the 200m backstroke. Her 200 IM and 100m Freestyle swims on Saturday edged her into a 20 point lead with 2319 FINA points, which she maintained through to Sunday night to retain her title.

Breaststroke specialist Annabel Guye-Johnson (13 years) opened her assault on the championships with a fine bronze in the 200m event after qualifying fourth fastest for the final in a time marginally outside her PB and CR. In the 100m event she qualified second fastest for the final and attacked the favourite right from the start swimming all but the last few meters on her shoulder but unfortunately had to settle for silver in a new PB and CR of 1:16.76, a full half a second inside her previous best. Joining Annabel in the breaststroke events was Emily Das (11 years) who PB’d in the 100m event and narrowly missed the final despite being one of the youngest in the field due to a recent birthday. There was a two second PB for Simon Newton (13 years) in the 100m butterfly in his first regional swim and solid swims from George Hinton (14 years) in the 200m Backstroke and Charlotte Chapman (14 years) in the 100m and 200m Freestyle.

With all the results in Monson’s age group girls have also now qualified for this year’s 4x100m Medley relay at Sheffield and Monson will this year see five swimmers compete in twenty events across the age group and youth championships.

Cardiff International

Meanwhile a small group travelled to Cardiff for this year’s International Level 1 event which saw several seasoned internationals and Olympians competing. Team Captain Beth Hathaway continued her improvement with Silvers in the 50m, 200m and 800m Freestyle and a bronze in the 100m Freestyle. Beth’s 50m and 200m swims were new PB’s and CR’s (27.47 and 2:06.59 respectively), the latter by nearly a second. Youngsters Issabella Wessells (9 years) and Mia Burns (11 years) also impressed making finals whilst there were solid performances from Anna Wessels (12 years).

Cranleigh Open

On Sunday a large group of development swimmers travelled to Cranleigh for their Level 3 Open Meet with similar success netting 8 gold, 13 silver, 7 bronze and a further 12 top six finish’s and a host of PB’s and CR’s.

Maxim Irving (11 years) stared with a hat trick of gold’s in the 50m Back, 50m Breast and 200 Free. A further two silvers and three bronze medals also earnt him the overall best 11 year old boy crown. Team mate Thomas Leman was not to be out done and underlined Monson’s dominance in this age group with his own golden hat trick in the 50m and 100m Breaststroke events and 50m Freestyle and added a further two silvers. The girls also struck gold with Emily Gillam (13 years) in the 200m breaststroke and Mia Burns (11 years) in the gruelling 200m Butterfly. Emily also won silver in the 50m Breaststroke.

There were mulitple silver and bronze combo’s for: Ami King (12 years) in the 50m’s Backstroke, Freestyle and Butterfly; Monique Gunter (12 years), 200m’s Backstroke and Freestyle; and for Aiden Crewe (12 years) in the 50m and 200m Backstroke events. Adding to the haul George Pepper (10 years) won two silvers in the 50m Backstroke and Freestyles for his age group and Anna Leman (9 years) and Harry Green (12 years) won silver apiece in the 50m Breaststroke and 50m Freestyles respectively. Also competing well: Alice Killick (12 years), Leo Sneddon (11 years), Elliot Jones (12 years) and Charlie Crew (9 years).

Monson are next in action in Round I of the Kent Junior League next weekend.