As is the case every year, the Ponds Forge pool arena was packed out and people queued all around the foyer as everyone in the family comes to see their son or daughter swim in the 50m sprints for all ages from 9 through to 90 – well actually 43 was the oldest swimmer in this year’s programme.
York City had a good number of swimmers from across our club competing. From those just starting out, where these were their first county championships – hopefully of many to come- through to those who were back for another year to show how they had improved and maybe push their performances to the next levels of Regional or National qualification.
12 swimmers made their way into their respective finals, with Katarina Bonner achieving the most individual final swims, with four. Whilst no swimmer could quite achieve a gold medal there were silver medals for Paris Grenier, Annie Johnston and George Hogg, whilst bronze medals were won by Kat Bonner and Annie Johnston. Our other finalists were Kimberley Thompson, Beth Gibbons, Megan Kirkman, Genna Suddes, Carrie Suddes, Freya Beck, Ellen Suddes, Sam Russell and Tom Watkins-Hargan. After the individual performances in the distance events on previous weekends, particularly by Lucy Nicholson, Paris Grenier and Kat Bonner for the girls and George Hogg and Sam Russell for the boys, it meant that YCBC had many individual achievements to celebrate.
Sunday was the day for team effort and putting your all in not just for yourself (though that is still helpful) but with your fellow three teammates, for the club. And in the usual cacophony, this Team Gala was no exception. Plenty of encouragement from club mates on poolside along with supporters from the gallery created an excellent atmosphere for competitive relay racing. With a greater number of girls’ teams entered, it is not surprising that our medals came from the 15 & 16 year old girls (Freya Beck, Annie Johnston, Ellen Suddes and Sophie Brown). In their Age group events they won a bronze for their medley swim and a very creditable 5th in the Freestyle. The girls then swam again in the Women’s Open events and scored a superb silver medal in that Medley race, pushing eventual winners, Borough of Kirklees, all the way. Kat Bonner joined Freya, Annie and Sophie for the Women’s Open Freestyle and it was another bronze – this time only narrowly beaten by Sheffield. After her individual successes of the previous day, Sunday afternoon was a hectic one for Kat Bonner and her 13/14 year age group teammates Lucy Nicholson, Carrie Suddes, Genna Suddes and Nicole Grenier. Whilst the Medley swim saw them take a very creditable 4th place and 6th place in the Freestyle, it was the fact that several of them found themselves simply getting out of the water after an age group swim to line up to do it all again in the Open event. And Kat had no less than four occasions where she was back in the water within minutes to do it all again. Yet it is on days like this when the quick turnarounds they do as routine in their daily training all pays off for our dedicated swimmers, as their individual times proved testament. Other teams to make it into finals included the Men’s Open (Matthew Winnell, James Wilby, Simon Duston and Alistair Mitchell) who made both Medley and Freestyle finals, the 13/14 year old boys (Sam Whittaker, George Hogg, Sam Russell and Jack Pears-Dorland) in the Medley, and the 15/16 year old boys (Alex Riches, Conor Hargreaves, Alex Scadding and Alistair Mitchell) in their Freestyle event.
A full listing of all the YCBC swimmers who participated in the team events is included in our report on the website (www.yorkcitybathsclub.org.uk), along with some pictures, but we must mention the particular commitment of two young ladies last Sunday. Bethany Barrett and Amy Durrant have been sidelined by injury for the past couple of months which meant they had missed all the opportunities in the individual events. However, both showed great resolve as well as unswerving team loyalty to test their recovery for one morning as they swam more than respectable lengths of their strokes in order not to let down fellow teammates. Amy & Bethany may have exemplified it but YCBC congratulate all our swimmers for turning up, having a go and doing it for each other as well as themselves.