Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Langford earns place at National Championships
Swimming
Herne Bay swimmer Charley Langford won two bronze medals at the South East Regional Age Group Championships in Crawley. The times the 14-year-old achieved ensured he will compete against the elite of British swimming in three freestyle events at the National Championships in July and August. Langford (pictured) battled his way to his first ever podium finish at this level in a tough 1,500m race and followed this up with fourth place in the 200m event in a personal best time. Langford will now swim both these events at Nationals at Ponds Forge in Sheffield, qualifying in 18th position in the longer distance event and in 29th place in the 200m. His best was still to come, however, with Langford going into the 400m freestyle as fourth seed. In his final swim of the championships, he pulled out a time of 4.22.06 to finish just behind two of the topranked swimmers in Britain and his bronze medal performance will see him going into British Nationals ranked in 11th position in this event. Langford, who learned to swim at Herne Bay Swimming Club and now competes for Thanet Swim, is preparing for his first tilt at open water swimming later this month. Faversham and Herne Bay SC youngsters were also in action for East Invicta at the South East Regional Championships. At Crawley, Bay’s Emmett Holdsworth and Ethan Sales competed against each other in the heat for the under-14 50m breaststroke finishing 13th and 14th respectively, though both in PB times. The boys also competed in the 100m breaststroke with Sales swimming a fine 1.21.01 and Holdsworth 1.23.58 to finish 11th and 18th in their age group respectively. Sales also achieved an incredible 10 second PB in the 200m breaststroke and a strong time in the 200m individual medley, with Holdsworth also achieving a long course PB in the 50m butterfly. Also at Crawley, Faversham’s Max Fordyce and Nathan Williams took part with 14-year-old Williams on top form in the 100m butterfly, achieving a PB of 1.07.47 and smashing a Faversham club record in the process. Fordyce’s strong swim in the 11/12yrs 100m breaststroke placed him 12th in the region. Both boys will be joining the rest of Faversham’s swimmers to compete in their outdoor Club Championships later this month. At Wycombe, Bay’s Georgia Miles swam the 200m breaststroke in the over-15 age group, achieving a long course PB time of 2.52.36 to gain 526 FINA points. Clubmate Rose Douglas-sutton also put in a great time for the 100m freestyle (1.07.73) in the under-14 age group and a strong time for the 50m freestyle.