Sunderland’s Performance Squad headed north once again to compete in Edinburgh’s impressive Royal Commonwealth Pool. This three day, long course, meet marked the beginning of the qualifying window for the national championships which ends on the 31st of May and which attracted a high quality field of competitors from Britain and abroad.
Jonny Carlisle, swimming in the 19+ age group, finished in the top 3 in all of his individual events. The final of the 100m backstroke was an exciting race which saw Jonny over take Loughborough University’s swimmers Liam Tancock and Joe Elwood in the latter stages of the race to take first place. His time of 55.95 seconds was just 3 tenths outside his PB.
In the 200m Backstroke, Jonny finished 3rd in the heats and the final but improved on his heat time by almost 2 seconds to finish in 2:01.61 in the final which was won by Warrender’s Craig McNally. Jonny set a new PB in the 50m backstroke finishing 3rd in the heats with a time of 26.46.
Rachel Taylor, 15, continued her excellent form by finishing 1st in the 200m breaststroke in 2:37.72 in the 15-16 age group. Finishing third in her heat of the 100m breaststroke in 1:14:12 was not only a PB but also a much sought after British Championships Qualifying Time. In the final she impressively bettered her PB set in the morning by 0.5 seconds finishing in 1:13.43 to claim 3rd place. Rachel qualified for the final of the 50m breaststroke, finishing 5th and set a new PB in the 200 I/M where she finished 7th.
The club’s other top three placed swimmer was 15 year old Anya Sordy who smashed her 200m butterfly PB by two seconds to finish in third place with a time of 2:23.72. Anya  swam well all weekend to secure 10th place in the 400 I/M, setting a new PB, was 12th in the 100m butterfly and 17th in the 200 I/M also with a new PB..
Adam Taylor narrowly missed out on a top three finish. He was 4thin the 19 + age group of the skins final of the 50m butterfly event with a time of 24.72. He was the youngest of the eight finalists. The final of the 100m backstroke saw him finish in 5th place in 57.83 providing Sunderland with its second top five swimmer in this event.   In the 200m backstroke final, Adam finished in 6th place improving his heat time by 1.5 seconds while in the 100m butterfly final he finished 8th in 55.18 just 1 hundredth of a second slower than his heat time!
Fifteen year olds Jodi Bunker, Amy Henshaw and Joseph Pomfret, sixteen year old Alexandra Clements and seventeen year olds Emma Cassell, Mason Jaques, Zak Logue and Freya Rayner all secured top eight places.
Jodi finished 6th in her heat of the 100m butterfly and matched this in the final. She finished 7th in the 200m butterfly and in the 400 I/M with a new PB in the latter of 5:13.27. Her 400m time of 4:34.42 was also a new PB and was fast enough to earn her 8th place.
Amy’s best result came in the 800m freestyle where she finished a creditable 6th and achieved a two second PB with a time of 9:29.27. Amy also finished with two tenth places in the 200m butterfly and 200m backstroke and set a new PB in the 400m freestyle, shaving 3 seconds off her time.
Joseph was 6th in the 200m breaststroke finishing in 2:16.82 a fraction outside his PB. Winning his heat of the 400 I/M event he put in a spirited performance to hold off swimmers from Middlesbrough ASC and Warrender, touching in 5:01.78 – a 20 second long course PB! This gave him 8th place in the 15/16 age group.
Backstroke finalist, Alexandra was in 8th place after the qualifying heats. Swimming in the 50m final she matched her heat position and her time was just 4 hundredths out from her qualifying time demonstrating great consistency.
Emma qualified for the B Final of the 200m butterfly in the 17+ age group with a time of 2:24.15 and in 17th place. In the final she improved both her time and her position to finish in 2:23.09 and 14th place.
Double finalist in the 17/18 age group, Mason, finished in 6th place in the final of the 50m backstroke, achieving a new PB of 28.09. In the 100m backstroke final, he was 7th in a time of 1:01.36. He also set a PB in the 100m freestyle coming home in 54.81.
Zak came 4th in the 1500m freestyle in a very respectable time of 16:34.51. He also achieved 10th place finishes in the 200m butterfly and the 400 I/M before he was forced to withdraw from the remainder of the competition due to illness.
Swimming in the 17+ age group, Freya did well to qualify for the skins final of the 50m back with a time of 30.52. She finished in 5th place in the final with a time of 30.12 and was only beaten by older competitors. The event was eventually won by Jessica Fullalove of City of Manchester Aquatics.
The club’s remaining competitors recorded excellent times and many PBs between them. Kieran Peart had a great weekend of competition achieving PBs in all of his events. Swimming I the 17/18 age group, he finished 9th in 50m freestyle in 24.69, was 11th in the 100m freestyle in 54.27 and was 14th in the 200m freestyle in 1:59.06.
Elizabeth Clements, 15/16 age group, achieved a seven second PB in the 200m butterfly to finish 13th in 2:33.43 and a five second PB in the 400m freestyle, finishing 20th in 4:42.89.
Lucy Ellis swimming in the 17+ age group finished 11th and 12th respectively in the 400 I/M and 800m freestyle events, setting new PBs in both. Her 400 I/M time of 5:01.29 showed a four second improvement.
Joshua Campbell, slowly regaining his form after a long layoff through injury, set a PB in the 50m breaststroke, earning him 14th place in the 17/18 age group. His times in the 200m and 100m breaststroke also moved him closer to his PBs and he finished 11th and 17th respectively.
Andrew Markham’s best individual result came in the 100m backstroke where he finished  15th in 1:04.77 while Lauren Exley finished 18th in the 100m butterfly close to her PB. Jen Tatters competed in the freestyle events from 100m to 800m with her best result set in the 800m event where she finished 16th in the 17+ age group.
Sunderland’s relay teams excelled in the two relay events. Sunderland A (Emma Cassell, Adam Taylor, Freya Rayner and Jonny Carlisle) finished 2nd in the 4 x 50m freestyle mixed relay with a time of 1:39.93. Competing against a top class field the team finished second to a team from Derby. The B Team (Jen Tatters, Kieran Peart, Lucy Ellis and Mason Jaques) were 9th in 1:45.54 and the C Team (Alexandra Clements, Zak Logue, Jodi Bunker and Joshua Campbell) were 13th in 1:50.13.
The 4 x 50m mixed medley relay saw Sunderland A take third place in 1:49.88, with Jonny Carlisle (backstroke), Rachel Taylor (breaststroke), Adam Taylor (butterfly) and Freya Rayner (freestyle) swimming fast to finish in 1:49.88. The whole team set amazing times with splits of 27.2, 32.57, 24.40 and 25.77 respectively!
Sunderland B (Alex Clements, Kieran Peart, Anya Sordy and Mason Jaques) finished 9th with a time of 1:58.08 and Sunderland C (Lucy Ellis, Joshua Campbell, Jodi Bunker and Andrew Markham) finished 11th in 1:59.86.
With qualification for the national championships based on ranking positions obtained during the qualifying window rather than qualifying times, this meet  enabled Sunderland’s swimmers to be among the first to register times, throwing down the gauntlet to other swimmers!