Swimmers celebrate record medal win at the ‘counties’
TIVERTON Swimming Club members are celebrating a record haul of medals and trophies at the Devon County Championships.
The event was held over three weekends in January and February in the 50m pool at Plymouth Life Centre.
Forty one Tiverton swimmers raced, winning five senior championship titles and seven junior championship titles – the most ever.
The swimmers all contributed to Tiverton being the fourth placed Devon club in the championships behind Mount Kelly, Plymouth Leander and Exeter City swimming clubs.
The championships consist of a heat swim in the mornings for competitors to qualify, with the fastest eight swimmers in an age group in the afternoon finals.
There are 18 events to race in, from 50m to 1,500m across all four strokes and individual medleys.
Jess Hill, racing in the 14 year girls, who won four junior titles, taking home trophies in 100m and 200m back, 100m and 200m individual medley and a haul of other top-three medal placings.
Harry Allen, racing in the male 15 year, was delighted to bring home two junior trophies, winning the 200m fly and 400m individual medley junior county titles and placing top three in all his other events.
Lotte Declerck, 15, swam a fast 50m backstroke to take the girls’ junior title as well as bagging herself three gold medals and multiple top three placings in her races.
In open age groups across multiple events, Gemma Dilks won the senior title in 400m freestyle, plus four gold medals, six silver and two bronzes, placing top three in Devon in six of her favourite events this year.
Competing against her twin sister, Jodie Dilks went on to win eight gold medals, four silver medals and four senior championship titles in 100m and 200m breaststroke plus 200m and 400m individual medley races.
Jodie placed top three in Devon in 11 of her races, with a very successful campaign and she had her first experience racing in the final county event – the girls’ freestyle “skins” where the six fastest 50m freestyle swimmers race in a knock-out competition across five rounds to win prize money.
She won £10 after being knocked out in round three.
Tiverton’s club para swimmer Ben Bibey won gold medals in the boys’ 400m freestyle and 200m breaststroke events and new club swimmer Rosamond Ffooks took the 10 to 11 girls events by storm winning 13 gold and one silver medal as she dominated all of the 50m, 100m, 200m events and the 400m freestyle.
Overall the club brought back 44 gold medals, including those won by Reuben Murphy, Ben Greenslade, Lewis Gow and William Harrison, 33 silver medals won by club swimmers including Rose Harrison and Jake Phare and 22 bronze medals from swimmers including Elli Cochran, Noah Thairs, Wilf Arrowsmith, Emma Declerck and Sam Arrowsmith.
They also saw top-five race placings for Annabelle Roberts, Chloe Phare, Evie Harvey and Bethanymay Shiach, and top-eight placing and finals races for Lucy Webber, Willow Clark, Emma Elliott, Katie Walton, Katie Williams, Finlay Woodfield, Arron Wood and Oliver Wallace.
Fast heat swims came from Esmae Matthews, Kelsey Pratt, Isla Dugard, Megan Blake, Jess Harvey, Rose Smyth, Oliver Smyth, Josh Holmes and Freddie Brassey-barlow – some of whom were racing at their first Devon County Championships.
Head coach Ian Jones said: “What a fantastic display of skills and talent we saw at Counties this year.
“Well done to everyone racing there, you were all awesome.”