Swindon Dolphin again dominated this year’s Wiltshire open water championships, winning all four senior championship titles, three of the four junior championship titles and the vast majority of the age group gold across the three events.
In the 750m event for the 11 year olds, James Chantler-Mayne finished in clear first place in the 11 year old boys category although a closer run race by the 11 year old girls resulted in Becky Matthews finishing first just a few seconds ahead of Ella Wardale.
A further clean sweep of junior and senior championship wins followed in the 1500m event with James Clark leading from the outset to take the men’s senior title, closely followed by Alex Chantler-Mayne who took the men’s junior. Another close race by the girls saw Charlotte Pitts just touch out Victoria Jennings on the finish to take both the junior and senior women’s titles.
Wiltshire Open Water Champions ~ Alex Chantler-Mayne, James Clark and Charlotte Pitts
In the 3000m contest a few days later, Clark and Chantler-Mayne again emerged clear victors in the men’s championships, with Sharna King taking the senior women’s title.
Full unabridged results of the Wiltshire Open Water Championships are available here.
A few weeks earlier, the South West Region open water event took place at Weymouth. Dolphin age group medallists were James Chantler-Mayne (gold 11 years 750m), Alex Chantler-Mayne (gold, 14 years and under, 1,500m), Glenys France (gold, 50 years and over, 1,500m) and Andrew Butler (silver, 15 to 18 years, 3,000m).
The National Open Water Championships took place at Rother Valley Country Park, just outside Sheffield. Wiltshire’s representation came from county champions Alex-Chantler-Mayne, James Clark and Charlotte Pitts, all of whom had made the qualifying mark in the distance freestyle pool events. The introduction of qualifying times has clearly contributed towards attracting high quality competitors to the championships and the three Dolphin swimmers, having won their own county events with relative ease, found the going tough. Clark finished in 13th position in the 15/16 year old boys, Pitts was 11th in the 14/15 year old girls and Chantler-Mayne finished 4th in the 13 year old boys.
