A small team of five swimmers from the City of Sunderland’s swimming club met the tough qualifying times for the National Age Group Championships held at Ponds Forge. This meet is for girls aged eleven to fourteen years and for boys aged eleven to fifteen years.
Jodi Bunker, thirteen, swam in the 200m Butterfly, 800m Freestyle and 400 I/M events. Her best result came in the 200m butterfly where she reached the final with a personal best time of 2:26.96 minutes and finished in 10th place.
Fourteen year old Freya Rayner swam in the 100m Freestyle, 100m Butterfly, 100m backstroke and 200m Backstroke events with her best results coming in the100m backstroke, where she finished 13th and in the 100m butterfly where she finished 14th and set a new personal best time of 1:05.19 minutes.
The girls’ 4 x 100m relay team: Gabrielle Burdess, 14, Eve Larsen 13, Jodi Bunker and Freya Rayner finished in 19th place in a time of 4:07.05 minutes. The girls’ 4 x 200m Freestyle team finished in 28th place in a time of 9:03.84 minutes. The team members were: Gabrielle Burdess, Amy Henshaw, 13, Jodi Bunker and Freya Rayner. The relays provided first time experience of the national arena for Eve and Amy and hopefully this will spur them on to gain individual event qualifying times next