Sunderland’s trio of fourteen year olds, Rachel Taylor, Anya Sordy and Jodi Bunker, raced to three gold and two silver medals at the regional long course championships which due to unforeseen technical problems took place over three weekends and at three different venues – Leeds, Sheffield and Sunderland!
Rachel, swimming in her first championships since joining City of Sunderland dominated the fourteen year old girls breaststroke events taking gold in both the 100m and 200m events. Her 100m time of 1:15.71 minutes was a national qualifying time and her 200m time of 2:43.27 minutes was a 2.7 second personal best (PB) and places her well within the national qualifying time. Both times were new club records in the fourteen year old girls’ age group and also All Time club records as was her 50m split time in the 100m event. Rachel finished 5th in the final of the 400 I/M and also swam in the 100m butterfly, 100m and 200m backstroke and 200m I/M events. A brilliant debut for the club!
Anya triumphed in the 200m butterfly, winning gold in a time of 2:28.26 minutes and set a new PB in the final of the 100m butterfly where she finished 6th in a time of 1:08.25 seconds. Anya finished 8th in the 800m freestyle and 13th in the 400m freestyle events.
Jodi won a silver medal in the 400 I/M and matched this achievement in the 100m butterfly. Her time of 1:05.65 seconds was a 1.5 second PB and gained her another national qualifying time. Jodi finished 6th in the final of the 200m breaststroke event, again achieving a PB and was also 6th in the 800m freestyle and swam in the 100m breaststroke and backstroke and 200m freestyle events.
Fourteen year old Joseph Pomfret also had a successful championship. He put in a strong performance in the heat of the 200m butterfly to improve his time by more than five seconds. His time of 2:21.58 minutes was just half a second outside the national qualifying time and he finished 5th in the final. Joseph also qualified for the final of the 200m freestyle, finishing 9th in a new PB and was 10th in the final of the 200m backstroke. His 13th place in the 200 I/M events, was a 2.8 second PB and he also finished 13th in the 200m backstroke event.
Completing the fourteen year old age group competitors were Jay Manners, Lauren Exley and Amy Henshaw. Jay set new PBs in all three of his events, taking almost three seconds off his 100m breaststroke time and almost four seconds off his 200m breaststroke time where he finished in 14th place. Lauren showed great improvement in the backstroke events finishing 15th in the 100m backstroke and achieving a 1.5 second PB. Her time in the 200m backstroke was almost two and a half seconds faster than she had swam it before and she almost matched her PB in the 100m butterfly. Amy finished 7th in the finals of the 200m butterfly and 200m backstroke events, reducing her time in the backstroke by more than four seconds. Amy also qualified for the 400m freestyle final, finishing 9th and was also 9th in the 800m freestyle event.
Thirteen year olds Amy Dixon, Elizabeth Clements, Eve Larsen and Natalya Sharp set ten PBs between them. Amy swam in the 200m butterfly and 100m freestyle, finishing 14th and 17th respectively and setting PBs in both events.  Elizabeth qualified for the finals of the 400m freestyle and 200 I/M, finishing eighth and setting new PBs in both events. She also achieved a seventh place finish in the 800m freestyle and was 12th in the 200m butterfly event. Eve competed in eight events, achieving PBs in five of them. Her best results came in the 800m freestyle, 400 I/M and 200m breaststroke where she finished 11th, 12th and 13th respectively with PBs in each. Eve also set new fastest times in the 200m I/M and 100m breaststroke events. Natalya competed in the 400 I/M, 100m breaststroke and 200m breaststroke, achieving a PB in the latter and finishing in 15th place.
The youngest members of the squad, twelve year old J.J. Robins and eleven year olds Tom Brumwell and Lara Greggs all put in good performances to qualify for three finals and set eight PBs. J.J. just missed out on a medal in the 1500m freestyle, finishing in 4th place, he also swam well in the 400 I/M to finish 9th in the final reducing his time by three seconds. J.J. also achieved PBs in the 200m breaststroke, 400m freestyle and 100m butterfly where he finished in 12th, 15th and 21st place respectively. Tom had a fine swim in the 200m backstroke, finishing in 5th place in the final, setting a new PB by more than five seconds. He also qualified for the final of the 200m breaststroke, finishing 9th and the final of the 200 I/M where he finished 8th and set a new PB in the 100m breaststroke and competed in the 100m and 200m freestyle events and the 100m backstroke event. Lara showed her aptitude for the backstroke events, finishing 12th in the 200m backstroke with a new PB of more than 1.4 seconds and was 19th in the 100m backstroke event.
The relay teams were in action too with the girls’ 4 x 200m freestyle A Team, finishing in 6th place and qualifying for the nationals. The team comprised: Amy Henshaw, Elizabeth Clements, Anya Sordy and Jodi Bunker. The B Team (Eve Larsen, Lauren Exley, Rachel Taylor and Amy Dixon) finished 12th. The girls 4 x 100m freestyle A Team (Elizabeth Clements, Anya Sordy, Eve Larsen, and Jodi Bunker) and B Team ( Lauren Exley, Rachel Taylor, Amy Henshaw and Amy Dixon) finished 7th and 13th respectively. The 4 x 100m medley A Team (Elizabeth Clements, Rachel Taylor, Jodi Bunker and Eve Larsen) finished 6th while the B Team (Amy Henshaw, Natalya Sharp, Anya Sordy and Amy Dixon) finished 14th.
The boys’ 4 x 100m freestyle team ( Joseph Pomfret, Tom Brumwell, J.J. Robins and Jay Manners) finished 14th and the 4 x 100m medley team ( Adam Boxall, Jay Manners, J.J. Robins and Tom Brumwell) finished 13th.