Hot on the heels of the British Summer Championships were the ASA Open Water National Championships held at the Rother Valley Country Park followed the next day by the start of the ASA Summer Championships at Ponds Forge. City of Sunderland had swimmers in both events who continued the club’s British Summer Championships success with medallists, finalists, new club records and PBs.
Amy Henshaw, 15 and Zak Logue, 16, took part in the ASA open water championships both gaining top ten finishes. Amy finished 8th in the girls 16 year old age group in the 3k event finishing in 39:09.89. In the boys 17/18 age group 5k event, Zak finished 9th in 1:02.30. A great result for both swimmers.
The six day ASA Summer Championships got off to a good start on day one with Rachel Taylor, 15, swimming in the 200 I/M. Finishing 8th in the heat she swam a brilliant final to finish second in a time of 2:35.34, a two second PB, just a tenth of a second outside the club record!
Freya Rayner, 16, continued the excellent form she showed at the British Championships by adding to her medal collection gold and bronze medals. The gold and ASA National title came in the 100m freestyle where she set a PB in the heat to finish 4th and then took almost a second off her time to finish 1st in the final. Her time of 57.54 broke the 16/18 age group club record and was just outside the All Time Club record. In the 100m butterfly event, Freya was in 4th place after the heats with a time of 1:04.46 a PB of 1.2 sconds. In the final Freya improved her heat time by a further 0.6 seconds to finish in third place with a time of 1:03.78 – a new Club record and All Time Club record.
It was third event lucky for Emma Cassell, 17, who finished 5th in the final of the 100m butterfly, 8th in the final of the 100m freestyle before winning silver in the 200m butterfly. Emma set new PBs in all three events finishing in 1:04.23 in the 100m butterfly, 59.30 in the 100m freestyle and 2:20.42 in the 200m butterfly to claim her podium finish.
S14 swimmer, Gareth Orr, 22, swam in four events and qualified for three finals. He missed out on a medal in the MC 200m freestyle where he achieved a 5 second PB in the heat to finish third but was unable to convert his time in the final, finishing 6th. However in the MC 100m breaststroke, Gareth improved his PB by almost 2 seconds in the heats to finish third and almost matched his heat time to finish third in the final and win a bronze medal. Gareth finished 6th in the final of the MC 200 I/M and was 12th in the MC 100m backstroke. The places were decided on British disability points.
Jack Bridge, 21, a S10 swimmer, who has trained with Sunderland this season but represents Preston S.C., had a highly successful meet. He swam in 5 events and reached the final in each winning two gold medals, one silver and a bronze medal. His gold medals came in the MC 200 I/M and MC 100m butterfly events. In each he finished 2nd in the heats and improved on his heat times considerably to win the finals. Jack finished second in the heat and final of the MC 100m freestyle where he set a new PB in both the heat and final to finish in 59.05. Improving his PB in both the heat and final of the MC 50m freestyle, Jack finished 3rd in both to win bronze in a time of 27.15.  He just missed out on another medal in the MC 100m backstroke, finishing 4th with a new PB of 1:11.08.
Mason Jacques, 17, qualified for six events and finished the meet with three top ten places. His highest placing came in the 50m freestyle where he was 6th in the final in a time of 24.56, improving on his heat time by 0.12 seconds. In the 200m freestyle event, Mason finished 7th in the final setting a new PB of 1:56.80. In the 100m freestyle, he finished 9th in the final in 53.87 seconds. Mason also finished 11th in the 50m and 100m butterfly and 100m backstroke events to complete an excellent two weeks of competition.
The girls 14/16 year old 4 x 200m freestyle relay team of Anya Sordy, 15, Elizabeth Clements, 14, Amy Henshaw, 15 and Jodi Bunker,15 had a successful race finishing 5th in the heats where they improved their entry time by more than 5 seconds to finish in 8:48.86. In the final the same team again improved their time, this time by more than two seconds, to finish 6th in 8:46.40.
These events marked the end of a very long, hard but extremely fruitful competitive season that has seen significant improvements from Sunderland’s swimmers. The number of titles, including British and National, medals, records (British, regional, county and club) and PBs achieved by the club this year has been phenomenal and the whole club should be very proud of the progress it continues to make.