Warwickshire & West Midlands Sport

Sharks star in top Midlands event

A HANDFUL of Stratford Sharks achieved the demanding qualification standards to compete in the Midland Swimming Championships at Coventry’s Olympic 50m pool.
The championships see the best swimmers from the nine counties affiliated to the East and West Midlands Swimming Associations come together for a weekend of exciting competition.
The five Sharks who qualified were Joe Evans (16), George Brear (18), Michael Ankrett (16), Emily Key (18) and Rebecca Tame (16) who was unfortunately unable to compete because of illness.
Evans was first into action in the 400m freestyle. Despite still being a few weeks short of his 17th birthday, the age cut off date for these championships demanded he competed in the 17/over age group but he made light of this and qualified comfortably for the afternoons final.
Brear was next up in the 50m breaststroke and was Stratford’s second qualifier for a final place with 4th in the 17/over age group. His older brother Adam also qualifyied for the final swimming for the City of Coventry.
Key took on the 200m freestyle in the first of her two events and finished a respectable 11th in the heats.
The 100m freestyle saw Evans and Brear in the 17/over age group joined by Michael Ankrett in the 15/16year olds. Evans finishing 3rd to book his second final spot in a seasons best which also improved his qualifying time for this summers National Championships. Brear was 10th and Ankrett 24th.
The clubs fourth finals place was achieved by Key who finished 7th in the 50m freestyle, while Ankrett was 26th in the 15/16year butterfly.
The afternoon finals got off to a great start courtesy of Evans who was 3rd in the 17/over 400m freestyle, his time also gaining him 3rd place in the overall championship.
In an extremely tough 17/over 50m breaststroke final, Brear narrowly missed out by finishing 4th.
Evans then competed in the 17/over 100m freestyle against some of the countries top youth sprinters and finished a creditable 6th despite not quite matching his heat time.
One who did improve on their heat time was Key who, after qualifying 7th fastest for the 50m freestyle, could not quite force her way into the top three and finished 4th.
On the second day Evans was again first into action in the 17/over 100m butterfly in which he just missed out on the final with 9th place.
Brear underlined his breaststroke abilities taking 4th fastest in the 17/over 100m to qualify for the afternoon final, while Evans swam comfortably within himself to finish 2nd fastest for the 17/over 200m freestyle final.
Key finished 9th in the 16/over 100m freestyle and Brear was 12th in the 50m freestyle.
In the 17/over 100m breaststroke final, Brear again found himself against some of the countries best, including one heading for this years European Junior Championships, but still competed hard finishing just outside the medals in 4th.
Evans finished his championships off in fantastic style by winning the gold medal in the 200m freestyle in the 17/over age group. He also set a new personal best and club record time and most importantly took his first Midlands Championship to add to the six Warwickshire County Championships he won in March.
The Midlands Championships continue in June with the age group competition for swimmers aged from 10-14 years which already sees six Stratford Sharks having achieved the qualifying times.
They are Lucy Castle, Olga Hall, Kathryn Lythgo, Josh Walker, Aleksander Forysiak and William Foster who, in a fantastic season to date, has achieved the full set of qualifying times for his 10year age group.

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