Swimmers set to make waves nationally

Eight South Lincs swimmers are headed to National Championships competitions over the coming weeks, marking the end to an exceptional season of swimming from the club’s athletes.

It includes those both in and out of the pool after a fantastic recent showing at the Midlands Open Water Festival.

The culmination of the swimming season sees the top 20 swimmers in the country in each age group and event invited to compete at British Summer Championships, the next 20 ranked swimmers are invited to compete at Swim England Summer Nationals.

The club are delighted to have representation at both of these events as well as at Open Water National Championships after a fantastic recent showing at the Midlands Open Water Festival.

Leading the way in the pool is 14-year-old Emma Croker who is this week set to compete at British Summer Championships in Glasgow in her preferred sprint events.

Croker will contest the 50m butterfly before focusing on her favourite events, the 50m and 100m freestyle.

A hard season of work for Croker has seen her move up the British rankings to stand fifth in the 50m freestyle and third in the 100m freestyle.

Croker will also contest the 200m freestyle at Swim England Summer Nationals which will be held in Sheffield from July 31 to August 4.

Ellisha Cookson is also headed to Glasgow for the British Summer Championships where she will compete in the 1500m freestyle and the 200m Individual Medley.

Both are demanding events with the 1500m freestyle requiring excellent aerobic capacities and speed endurance, whilst the 200m Individual Medley requires prowess across all four strokes.

Cookson will also start the South Lincs campaign at Swim England Summer Nationals where she contests the 800m freestyle, 400m, Individual Medley and both the 50m and 100m Breaststroke.

Both Croker and Cookson will be joined at the end of the week in Glasgow by Aurinija Maliauskaite and Daisy Rummery to participate in the 4x100m freestyle relay.

The quartet came together for an outstanding swim at East Midlands Regional Championships where they collected a silver medal and posted one of the fastest 30 times in the country to qualify to British Summer Championships in this event.

The South Lincs team will be looking to improve on the time they posted at Regional Championships back in May.

At Swim England Summer Nationals, along with Croker and Cookson, Mollie Briggs will be in action with a very demanding programme of events. Briggs will compete in the 400m, 800m and 1500m freestyle events which are scheduled to be held on three successive days.

With Swim England Summer Nationals still several weeks away Briggs is still in the midst of hard training preparing for these long distance swims but her national campaign will go one beyond these pool events as she will also be participating swimming the 3km event at the Open Water National Championships in the Rother Valley.

The 14-year-old, won silver in the Midland Open Holme Pierrepont, National Watersports Centre, Nottingham clocking 39mins 39.72secs three times around the 1km course.

Mollie swam strongly and when needed, she showed her talent at finishing the distance events by winning a silver Midlands medal (East and West Midlands combined) as well as a silver East Midlands medal.

Joining Briggs for Open Water National Championships, will be 12- year-olds Isobel Gosling and Oliver Sorrell and 13-year-old Nitesh Anbazhagan. Gosling, Sorrell and Anbazhagan will all contest the 2km open water event at Rother Valley.

Gosling and Sorrell both qualified to the event by posting times in the 1500m freestyle inside the qualifying standards and both collected silver medals in this event at Regional Championships.

Both were competing in their first open water race too and swam well showing much promise for the future. Oliver finished in 29.11.61, just missing out on a medal coming in fouth in Midlands and fourth for East Midlands. Isobel finished in 30.59.12 and came ninth in Midlands and sixth in East Midlands.

It was his first time competing in open water for Anbazhagan too who swam a good consistent race and hit the board in a time of 29.12.55.

He came fourth in the Midlands and second for East Midlands.

His East Midlands placing won him the silver medal as well as the finals place.

A spokesman for the club, said: “For all eight swimmers this is the first occasion on which they have achieved qualification to National Championship competitions and we wish them every success over the coming weeks in their events.”

Others competing in the Midlands Open Water event included Dusty Saines who swam in the 15-year-old girls’ 3km race.

Despite swimming against some strong competition she came home in a very respectable 11th in Midlands and a fifth place for East Midlands in a time of 43.09.19.

Two masters swimmers from the club were also competing in the 2km masters event.

Jackie Briggs was swimming in the ladies 50-59 years age group and claimed the gold medal for Midlands and the gold medal for East Midlands.

Nikki Saines in the ladies 40-49 years age group brought home a silver medal in the Midlands category and a gold medal for East Midlands.