Runnymede Swimming Club
Runnymede Swimming Club has every reason to be proud. They took 13 swimmers with 71 qualifying times to the East Region 50m Bagcat Championships at Norwich. Between them they won an outstanding tally of 7 Gold Medals, 3 Silver Medals and 4 Bronze medals and were involved in 34 top 8 finals. All this resulted in Runnymede finding itself 7th top club in the East Region and 2nd top club in Essex. An outstanding
accomplishment by this young squad who faced the best swimmers from 6 counties.
3 of the Squads swimmers also achieved 6 National Qualifying times over the 2 weekends of swimming. These are the Clubs first national qualifying swimmers for a number of years. Barton Townley and Ellie Pirrie have qualified in 3 events each; Barton 100 and 200m Backstroke and 200m I/M; Ellie 100 and 200m Fly and 200 I/M and Kayleigh Sims has also qualified in the 200m Breaststroke.
The star performer for Runnymede and the Refional Championships was Barton Townley who, swimming at his best, won Top Boy in the 11 year age group and winning 4 Gold Medals in the 200m I/M, 100m and 200m backstroke and 100m Butterfly, 3 Silver in 200m Freestyle and 200m breaststroke and 200m Butterfly and bronze in 400m Freestyle.
Ellie Pirrie also had an outstanding competition as well as achieving 3 national qualifying times she took the Gold Medal in both the 200 and 100m Butterfly. Her 3rd qualifying time was gained by coming 5th in the 200 IM where 7 out of the 8 swimmers in the final also achieved national qualifying times!
Murphy Talbot competing in his first ever regional Championships had a spectacular couple of weekends where all his recent hard work paid off. He has an amazing swim to win Gold in the 400 IM and went on to win a Bronze in the 200m Breaststroke. Similarly Mark Greenbaum, in fine form, won 2 Bronze medals for the 200 and 100m Butterfly. An achievement even more remarkable as this was the first time he had ever swum in a 50m pool.
Runnymede’s 3rd swimmer to gain a national qualifying time at the Championships was Kayleigh Sims who justly deserved to find herself a place with a great swim in the 200m Breaststroke.
Mention must be made for the 2 youngest swimmers in the squad – Karis Ellerby and Annie Garrard, for the ten year age group, who were both swimming for the first time at such a prestigious event. Both rose to the occasion with some fantastic swims. Karis making it to the final of the 200m Breaststroke resulting in 5th place and Annie just missing out on the final in 9th position.
Others making the finals were Charlotte Hartin and Rory Geoghegan who came 5th and 6th respectively in the 200m Breaststroke and Ellie Townley who achieved a terrific 7th place in the 800m Freestyle.
Madison Townley, James Winnell and Melissa Knighton completed the squad and although did not win medals, had some fantastic swims, achieved several personal bests and certainly contributed to Runnymede’s overall success.
In the Youth East Regional Championships which took place at the beginning of June Runnymede’s older swimmers also had some great results. Charlotte Davis, Natalie Ward, Adam Carter and Chloe Davis had some excellent swims reaching an outstanding 8 finals between them.
Charlotte who qualified to compete in 7 events reached the finals of 3 of them; finishing in 5th place in the 200m Fly, 6th in the 400m freestyle and 8th in 100m Fly. Natalie who was competing for Runnymede at Regionals for the first time also had some excellent swims also reaching the finals of 3 events; she finished in 6th place in the 50m Fly and backstroke and 7th in 200m Backstroke events.
15 year old Adam Carter and 14 years old Chloe Davis had some great swims in their first ever Youth Competition. Long distance freestyler Adam finished in an outstanding 6th place in the 1500m, 10th in the 800m and 15th in the 400m. Chloe’s highest placing’ of the weekends swimming was 15th in the 800m, 16th in the 100m Fly and 18th in the 1500m freestyle events.
To add to the clubs success at the Regional Championships 4 of their swimmers have been selected to represent Essex in the East Region Inter-County Gala; Charlotte Davis, Chloe Davis, Natalie Ward and Barton Townley will be swimming for the County’s team at Hatfield on the 5th July