South Lincolnshire swimmers put in some strong performances at the East Midlands Regional Championships at Corby and Derby.
Charlie Bisby led the way with a hat-trick of medals in the backstroke events in the boys’ 13 years’ age group. He swept to gold in both the 50m and 100m backstroke, setting a time of 1:11.81 in the finals of the 100m backstroke. In the 50m he clocked a personal best time in the heats of 32.76 seconds. In the final, Bisby was just outside this time but it was enough to be the first swimmer to touch the wall. He also added a bronze medal in the 200m backstroke, punching the wall in a PB of 2:37.08.
Francesco Monaco had an exceptional regional championships, claiming five medals over the course of the two weekends. He topped the podium in the boys’ 11/12 years’ 1500m freestyle in a PB of 19:41.64 and a gold medal.
Monaco also claimed a brace of silver medals with PBs in both the 200m breaststroke and 400m individual medley. His times were enough to see him qualify for Swim England Summer Nationals.
For good measure, Monaco also picked up bronze medals in the 800m freestyle and the 100m breaststroke, both in PB times.
Breaststroke specialist Sigourney Bolton made it a hat-trick of finals in the girls’ 15 years’ as she claimed centre lanes in the 50m, 100m and 200m. She set a PB of 36.50 in the 50m final to take fifth place and was fourth in the 200m. However, it was in the 100m event that Bolton produced an exceptional swim. Setting a PB of 1:17.66, Bolton claimed bronze.
Oscar Goldsmith had a busy programme and came away with a hat-trick of medals and a host of PBs. He claimed silver in the boys’ 16 years’ 400m individual medley and followed up with bronze in the 200m individual medley final. In the 200m butterfly, Goldsmith set a PB in the heats and another in the final with a time of 2:15.84 to take a further bronze medal.
The South Lincs para swimmers also participated, with Connor Boyfield taking silver in the 100m butterfly with a long course PB of 1:28.46. Orlaigh Greer collected three bronze medals in the multi classification events of 100m freestyle, 100m breaststroke and 100m backstroke.
* Greer was in action at the British Junior National Para Swimming Championships in Coventry.
Greer contested five events over the course of the weekend and produced some excellent results in the short course championships, held in a 25m pool.
She got the weekend under way with a personal best time in the 100m freestyle, 1:24.47 for fourth place and followed up by lowering her PB by four seconds in the 100m backstroke, 1:30.79 to win the girls’ 10-13 years silver medal.
Greer was disqualified in the 100m breaststroke but finished sixth in the 50m freestyle. In the 100m butterfly she stormed to a PB by some five seconds to dip below the two-minute mark for the first time in 1:58.50 to collected another silver medal.
Greer is next in action at the Swim England Summer Nationals in Sheffield at the end of July.
* A team of 17 South Lincs swimmers were at Hykeham in the Lincolnshire County Open Water Championships after spending a few sessions at Tallington Lakes to get accustomed to open water swimming.
The 11 to 13-year-old age group contested an 800m course and Francesco Monaco finished first in the 11-13 year old class. Greer also won gold in the para S10 category.
The older age groups faced two laps of the lake and Hannah Bruce defended her girls’ 14/15 title to claim gold for the second year in a row. There was double medal success in the boys’ 14/15 years’ age group as
Will Vere collected silver and Matteo Monaco bronze.
In the boys’ 16/17 years age group, Kacper Zajac won gold and there was a silver medal for Jess Herriott in the girls’ category.
Luke Blanchard also defended his county title in the men’s 18-24 group, with team mate John Boor collecting bronze.
