The City of Sunderland ASC junior swimming team continued their quest for points in the third round of the Durham and District Junior (Diddy) League One, at the Wear Valley Pool, Bishop Auckland. After previously finishing a close second to a strong Newcastle team, the city swimmers were now seeking top spot, this time against teams from Middlesbrough, Stockton, Chester-le-Street, Tynemouth and Newburn.

In the 9 year old age group, Natalya Sharp, Charlotte Jurgens, Stephanie Burdess, Harry Staines, Ben Hutchinson and Blake Stevenson performed well in the team events, with Ben Hutchinson scoring maximum points for the city by winning the 25m Butterfly individual event.

From the outset, the Sunderland and Tynemouth teams set the pace for the competition with both teams wrestling for top spot. Joseph Pomfret (10) increased the pressure on Tynemouth with victories in the 50m Freestyle and 50m Butterfly events and together with fellow ten year olds Matty Walker Smith, Callum Dan, Elizabeth Clements, Eve Larson, Beth Nicholson and Amelia Bateman, established a narrow lead for the City of Sunderland.

Impressive individual and team performances by eleven year olds; James Brewerton, Will Robinson, Jodi Bunker, Alex Clements, Lauren Patterson and Jennifer Sharp and twelve year olds; Andrew Markham, Harry Richardson, Callum Reveley, Kristian Donaldson, Jessica Thompson, Georgina Lamb, Laura Taylor, Christina Castledene and Ashlyn Liddle, maintained Sundrland’s supremacy, with the team eventually clinching top spot eight points ahead of the Tynemouth team.

The final positions were:

The team next travel to the Neptune Pool, Middlesbrough for the fourth and final round of the competition before the league final at Felling on 27th June 2010. 

Three swimmers from the City of Sunderland ASC represented the city at the Sheffield Premier Meet taking a prestigious individual award and achieving a clutch of personal best times.

Izzy Bosanko finished the meet with the top girl swimmer award for the 12 year old age group, after a series of impressive performances. In the 1500m freestyle she took 40 seconds off her personal best time to achieve her first national time of the year and in the tough 200m butterfly event she achieved the national qualifying time for the second year running. Coach Paul Woodley said, ‘Izzy did really well. She had a busy weekend and dug deep to achieve her qualifying time for the 200m butterfly – an event in which she reached last year’s national final.’

Annabelle Joyce had two solid swims achieving long course personal best times in the 200m Freestyle and 50m Backstroke, while team mate Lucy Ellis followed up her impressive Northumberland and Durham performance in the 800m Freestyle by taking 10 seconds off her personal best time. Lucy also achieved personal best times in all of her events at this meet. Coach Paul Woodley said, ‘Lucy now is only 9 seconds off qualifying for National Championships in July and achieving personal best times all weekend is a fantastic achievement bearing in mind the number of events she has competed in.’

The City of Sunderland ASC took a large squad of ‘Age Group’ and ‘Youth’ swimmers to the Derventio Excel Open Meet, held at Ponds Forge, Sheffield and once again the team did the city proud. In a competition involving 72 teams from the UK and a team representing Dubai, the city took a total of 44 medals (17 Gold, 14 Silver and 13 Bronze), overall finishing second in the medals table behind a strong City of Derby squad

Leading the way for Sunderland with four titles was Jodi Bunker (10), who took gold in the 400m Individual Medley, 200m Butterfly, 200m Individual Medley and 100m breaststroke, as well as silver in the 100m Butterfly, 200m Breaststroke and a bronze in the 400m Freestyle.

For the boys, Adam Taylor (13) put in a series of impressive performances to top the podium in the 100m Freestyle, 100m Backstroke, 200m Backstroke, and 50m Freestyle, to add to two silver medals in the 200m Butterfly and 400m Freestyle events.

Double gold medal winners were; Lucy Walton (12) in the 400m Individual Medley and 400m Freestyle, Emma Sinclair (13) in the 200m Backstroke and 200m Butterfly and Adam Charlton (12) in the 200m Freestyle and 100m Butterfly. Together the trio also took an impressive haul of four silver and eight bronze medals for the city.

Johnny Carlisle (17) having just competed at the British Championships earlier in the week stormed to victory in the men’s 100m Backstroke, while Andie Hinitt (14) took gold in the 200m Breaststroke and 2009 National Youth Championships finalist Danielle Huskinson (17) sealed victory in the women’s 400m Freestyle, adding to her bronze in the 200m Backstroke.

In one of the most improved performances of the meet, Jessica Thompson (11) took the silver medal in the 400m Individual Medley event, stopping the clock way inside the qualification time for the forthcoming Summer National Age Group Championships.

Further medals were taken by; Alexandra Robinson (15) silver in the 400m Freestyle and Individual Medley, Joe Middleton (14) silver in the 400m Freestyle and bronze in the 100 and 200m Freestyle, Lida Abrie (14) silver in the 200m Breaststroke and bronze in the 100m breaststroke, together with Jordan Henry (12) who took silver in the 50m Backstroke event.

Coach Danny Thompson said, ‘This meet showed the strength in depth that is now coming through the programme at Sunderland. All of our athletes achieved lifetime best performances. This is testament to the dedication and application of the athletes and the coaching team at City of Sunderland.’ 

BRITISH GAS
SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS 2010

Six swimmers from the City of Sunderland ASC competed in the prestigious Commonwealth, European and European Junior Trials held in Sheffield last week and once again the team performed to a high standard recording some outstanding performances.

Jonny Carlisle continued his excellent form this season by recording a superb personal best time of 57.46 in the 100m backstroke semi final – narrowly missing the qualification time for a place in the European Junior Team by two tenths of a second.

Laura Dawson also recorded an excellent time of 29.25 in the 50m butterfly semi final and it is hoped that Laura - a member of the Scottish Development Squad – will be able to use this time for the Scottish Commonwealth Trials held in June.

Kathryn Woolston-Thomas displayed great confidence and composure in setting her season best times in both the 50m and 100m freestyle events with respective times of 27.73 and 58.90.

Patrick Callan also produced a great effort in the 100m breaststroke to record an excellent time of 68.40.

In the championships disability events, Eleni Papadopoulos had a fantastic week taking gold in both the 200m individual medley and the 100m butterfly events. In what proved to be an excellent warm up for the forthcoming ‘Disability Trials,’ Eleni also reached the finals in the 100m breaststroke, 100m backstroke and 50m butterfly, scored a 100m freestyle personal best time and took fourth place in the 400m freestyle event.

Matthew Wylie who was competing in the disability event for the first time at this level, also produced an outstanding performance in the 400m freestyle event to achieve another personal best time of 5.30.19.

Head Coach Alastair Johnson commented 'All the swimmers showed great commitment to achieve these results. We are constantly upping our expectations and standards. We see these Trials as a first step towards better results and more swimmers racing at this level. As part of our planning for the future, we bought tickets for our youth and age group swimmers to come down and watch the finals on the last night to soak up the atmosphere and to learn more about what it takes to compete at this level. We are very excited about the rest of the season and having many more swimmers competing at national events.'