Halton show fine style as season ends
HALTON Swimming Club’s swimmers brought the 2015-16 season to an end in emphatic style with a number of great performances.
In the North West Regional Championships held at the Manchester Aquatics Centre, Halton’s youngsters produced some great swims and came home with numerous medals and personal best times.
Members of the Halton squad that qualified for the event included Sophie Buckley, Lucy Harris, Libby Harrison, Lizzie Bryce, Ellie-Jo Hughes, Eleanor Donald, Joshua Howard-Hughes, Tom Roberts, Daniel Buckley, Leevi Gumbs, William Woodward and Matty Sayle.
In the inaugural Southport Swimming Championships held at Huyton, Halton were represented by Isabel McCafferty, Emmie Brownlow, Keira Gerrard, Libby Harrison, Alfie Mather, Rhys Croasdale, George Winckles, Niamh McCafferty, Emmie Brownlow, Lucy Harris, Rachel Bate, Sam Shurrie, Ruby Pritchard, and Hannah Forsyth.
A number of personal best times were recorded and numerous medals won.
Among the youngsters who excelled were nine-year-old Rhys Croasdale who came home with six medals. He won gold in the 50m butterfly and 50m breastroke, silver in the 100m freestyle, 50m freestyle and 100m individual medley and bronze in the 50m backstroke,
Thirteen-year-old Libby Harrison won bronze in the 50m breaststroke.
Eleven-year-old Alfie Mather collected bronze for the 100m backstroke.
Ten-year-old George Winckles claimed a bronze medal for the 50m butterfly.
And 13-year-old Lucy Harris claimed bronze medals in the 100m freestyle and 50m butterfly. A special mention must go to the younger members of the squad who were taking part in this type of event for the first time.
Meanwhile, Halton’s open water swimming specialist Tom Roberts took part in the Masters Open Water Nationals held at the Rother Valley Country Park in Rotherham.
All of Tom’s hard training in the pool paid off with a fantastic win in the 3km 18-24 yearold age group in a time of 38:17.00 and after a number of events over the weekend he came second to Great Britain swimmer Roberto Pavoni who claimed a silver medal in the individual medley at the 2014 European Championships.