Bishop’s Stortford swimming club got off to a flying start in the first weekend of competition in the Hertfordshire county swimming championships held over three weekends of intense competition at the Borehamwood swimming centre.

During more than 23 hours of exciting racing in a series of heats and finals, the Stortford team succeeded with 13 swimmers in medal winning performances, but the highlight was the sheer volume of Stortford competitors who achieved personal best performances and pushing themselves to achieve new standards of performance and making finals appearances for the first time. The swimmers were competing in individual age group competitions from 9 years old upwards to championship races for youths (under 16) and open category.

The first weekend saw individual competition success for 10 year old Max McCusker grabbing four convincing victories from four events in the 200m backstroke (2 minutes53.10 seconds), 200m butterfly (2 minutes 59.49 seconds), 100m (1 minute 20.10 seconds) and 400m (6 minutes 15.32 seconds) individual medley, setting a new club record for his efforts in the 400m event. Grace Lee (14) won four age group events and 3 silver junior championship medals. Her success came in the 100m freestyle (60.81 seconds), 100m backstroke (67.33 seconds), 400m freestyle (4 minutes 33.32 seconds) and the 50m freestyle (28.97 seconds). Georgina Pryor competed in gritty style through a school hockey injury and won three events in the 100m individual medley (1 minute 18.04 seconds), 100m backstroke (1 minute 17.72 seconds), 100m butterfly (1 minute 16.49 seconds) and third in the 50m freestyle final in 32.02 seconds.

The club has also found a new young rising star within it’s ranks in the shape of 9 year old Ellie Mitchell who won her 50m freestyle in such a strong manner that her nearest rivals could only watch in disbelief as she romped home first in a brilliant time of 34.73 seconds.

It looks like the 15 year old boys will be a strong force to be reckoned with as they celebrated success across a number of disciplines. Alex Snowden led the way with victory in the 100m breaststroke in a fantastic time of 1 minute 13.71 seconds which also earned him victory in the junior championship. Alex also came second in the gruelling 1500m freestyle in 17 minutes 41.39 seconds and the 50m breaststroke final in 33.61 seconds. Kieran Huggett won the 200m butterfly in typical tough manner and followed that up with second in the 100m butterfly in 64.13 seconds. Jake Lloyd followed up the 15 year old success when he earned three bronze medals in the 100m butterfly (64.93 seconds), 200m backstroke (2 minutes 24.10 seconds) and the 1500m freestyle in 17 minutes 57.83 seconds. Oliver Barker made it a remarkable session for the team when he equalled Jake Lloyd’s junior championship 200m backstroke time in 2 minutes 24.10 seconds.

There were other notable successes for the boy’s team when Ed Rudge (16) came second in the 100m breaststroke in 1 minute 17.08 seconds and rising breaststroke star Matthew Aldous Horne celebrated his first final appearance with a Bronze medal in the 50m breaststroke in a fabulous time of 37.19 seconds after turning brilliantly to leave his contenders trailing.

Lauren Geddes showed that she is finding her old form when she won two silver medals in the 15 years 100m backstroke (1 minute 13.77 seconds) and 100m butterfly (1 minute 11.77 seconds), whilst 13 year old Jessica Wacey twice finished a strong third in her specialist butterfly stroke in both the 100m (1 minute 13.75 seconds) and 200m (2 minute 52.04 seconds) events. Seventeen year old Katy Hanson completed the medal tally for Stortford when she finished second in both the 50m freestyle (29.96 seconds) and 100m backstroke (1 minute 12.14 seconds) events.

Next weekends competition promises to hold further success for the club with more personal and team best performances over a full days programme on Saturday.