Last weekend, the South West Regional Youth Championships took place at Millfield and Swindon swimmers were competing as Sx3 for the second year.
The meet was dominated by the mighty Plymouth Leander who took home more gold medals than second and third placed Millfield and Bath University combined. However there were some fine performances by Swindon to spoil the party.
Alex Jones was involved in some titanic battles over the weekend, being touched out of first place in the 200m freestyle by just 2/100s by Plymouth’s Steven Beckerleg and suffering a similar fate in the 200m and 400m individual medley at the hands of Beckerleg’s team-mate Jonathon Hill.
Elizabeth Beckett also found herself on the podium three times, taking a silver in the 50m breaststroke and two bronzes in the 100m and 200m events. Tilly Gray and Jon Audis both picked up two silvers each, Laura Young earned gold in the 50m breaststroke, whilst Joe Kerslake put on an impressive performance to earn his first regional medal with a bronze in the 800m freestyle.
But it was Dean Williamson who turned on the style in his final of the 200m butterfly. Locked in a battle with Millfield’s James Clarke, Williamson came back from being second with 50m left to touch out his opponent and take the senior title. Williamson also took a well deserved bronze in the 100m event.
The relay events were again dominated by Plymouth although the 4 x 200m freestyle team of Alex Jones, Dean Williamson, Liam Herbert and Kieron German put in a performance to put them in the top 30 swims of all countrywide regional championships and earn them a place at the National Youth Championships in July.
New national qualifying times were also in the sights of some individual swimmers and Dean Williamson bagged two in the 50m and 100m freestyle. Sprint freestyler Matthew Rose also made the grade in the 100m event whilst Mel Agius added the 1500m freestyle and Sophie Hawkins the 100m backstroke to their existing list of qualifying events.
