This past weekend saw Manchester Aquatic Centre host the National Para-Swimming Long Course Championships.

This year’s event saw a 22 strong team of welsh swimmers make their journey up the M6 to compete against the best Para-Swimmers in Great Britain. They would be competing against the established World stars such as Eleanor Simmonds, Sascha Kindred and Jessica Jane-Applegate.

At the elite level, Jack Thomas, Aaron Moores, Chloe Davies, Connah Green (All Swansea Aquatics) and Jonathan Eke (Newport) were in amongst the fastest swimmers. Connah Green, who was competing in his first National Para-Swimming Championships, placed himself firmly in the mix with some strong performances that saw him push many of the GB World Class programme swimmers close.

The National Championships are also an opportunity for emerging talent to test themselves against those from across the county and within their classifications, and they certainly put themselves firmly on the swimming map.

RCT Performance Swimmer Rebecca Lewis, entered 6 events and came away with 6 huge personal best times. She also came away from Manchester with 1 silver and 2 bronze medals in her age group of 11-13yrs. 12 year old Rebecca, who has been swimming within the RCT club programme since she was 9, competes as an S10 classification swimmer and is certainly one to watch for the future!

Neath’s Molly Hopkins, who is also 12 years old and swims in the S9 classification, also put on some outstanding performances. In particular in the 100 freestyle, 100 backstroke and 400 freestyle, where she commanded her heats and came away with a 3 sec, 9 sec and 18 sec PB respectively. Molly is also currently part of the British Para-Swimming Academy programme and those performances will have not only reaffirmed that selection but would have gone some way to moving higher through the World Class Programmes.

Personal best of the meet certainly went to Tenby swimmer Lilly Rice, by posting a 52 second PB in the 400 freestyle. This was on top of the additional 4 PB times in her other events. 11 year old Lilly has only been classified within the last year and is making huge strives through her classification.

City of Cardiff Swimmer Bethan Eckley, was also hoping to use this event as a platform to launch towards achieving a consideration time for British Swimming World Class Programme. 15 year old Bethan swims as an S10 and after a solid first day of swimming, she turned on the burners on day 2. In both the 200IM and 400 freestyle she came away with 9 second PBs.

Not wanting to be out done by the girls, the boys also put in some sensational swims. Shrewsbury based Tom Piggott has continued his rapid improvements and edged closer to a World Class consideration time. Although just missing out on that target in Manchester, he dropped his times in the 100free, 100 backstroke, 100 breaststroke and 400 freestyle.

Tom’s club team mate Reilly Shanahan followed suit with some exceptional performances in the S9 classification. In particular in his 100 and 400 freestyles where he smashed his PBs by 3secs and 7 secs respectively.

Newport Swimmers Ellis Underwood and Liam Walsh were engaged in a club battle as well as a National one. Not wanting to be out done, they matched each other with 3 sec bests in the 100 freestyle and 50 freestyles. Liam went on to perform PB times in the 100 fly and 200IM, whereas Ellis broke his previous 400 freestyle best by 26 seconds.

Swimmers:

Jack Thomas (Swansea Aquatics)

Aaron Moores (Swansea Aquatics)

Chloe Davies (Swansea Aquatics)

Connah Green (Carmarthen)

Jonathan Eke (Newport)

Liam Walsh (Newport)

Ellis Underwood (Newport)

Bethan Eckley (Cardiff)

Rebecca Lewis (RCT Performance)

Molly Hopkins (Neath)

Kate Rees (Neath)

Lilly Rice (Pembrokeshire County)

Jordan Margery (Bridgend)

Ben Millington (Newtown)

Sam Baulch (Caerphilly)

Seren LeConte (Caerphilly)

Matthew Thorne (Celtic Dolphins)

Tom Piggott (Shrewsbury)

Reilly Shanahan (Shrewsbury)

Ffion Butler (Shrewsbury)

Emily Jane Else (Swansea Aquatics)

Elisha Rodway (Amman Valley)

Congratulations to all the swimmers this weekend and here’s to the British International Meet in March 2016