Four of South Lincs Competitive Swimming Club’s athletes did themselves proud at the British Summer Championships last week.
Held at Tollcross in Glasgow from Tuesday to Sunday, Emma Croker, Ellisha Cookson, Aurinija Maliauskaite and Daisy Rummery were all representing the Spalding-based club.
Croker was contesting three individual events, the 50m butterfly and the 50m and 100m freestyle, while Cookson was in action in the 1,500m freestyle and the 200m IM.
They were also joined by Maliauskaite and Rummery for the final event of the competition to form the South Lincs 4x100m freestyle relay team.
Day one of the championships saw an amazing start for South Lincs.
Croker, competing at her first national event, posted a solid 29.44secs swim in the 50m butterfly to qualify through to the girls’ 13/14 years age group final in eighth place.
An exceptional swim in the final then saw her break the 29-second barrier for the first time and set a new personal best (PB) of 28.65secs as she finished just outside the medals in a fine fourth place.
Day two saw another successful campaign for Croker, as she stormed to a new PB time of 27.20secs in the heats of the 50m freestyle, an improvement of 0.31secs on her previous best.
Her time saw her qualify through to the evening’s final of the girls’ 13/14 years age group in this event.
In the final, Croker swam a controlled first 25m, but showed tremendous speed and power in the second half of the race to move ahead of the field and touch the wall in a staggering new PB time of 26.63 seconds to claim the silver medal, showing she truly is one of the best of British.
On day three, Croker competed in the heats of the 100m freestyle.
She was out fast in her opening 50m – her fastest ever front end speed – and worked hard in the second 50m to finish in a time of 59.27secs and qualify through to the finals of the girls’ 13/14 years group in fourth place.
Team-mate Cookson was also in action on day three, swimming the 1,500m freestyle.
This was only the third occasion that she had swam the event, which is one of the most demanding in the swimming programme.
Despite working hard throughout the race, she was just off her pace target and finished outside of her PB in a time of 18.29.97mins.
However, Cookson did finish in a very creditable 12th place in the 15 years age group.
In the final of the 100m freestyle, Croker managed to improve on her heat time and post her second-fastest ever time in this event with a 59.26secs swim.
She finished in sixth place and should be delighted to have achieved finals in all three of her individual races.
On day four, the South Lincs swimmers competed in their final events.
Cookson was up first in the 200m IM and turned in a very strong performance – posting her third-fastest ever time in the event to finish in 2.30.79mins and take 21st place in the girls’ 15 years age group.
The final event with South Lincs interest was the girls’ 14-16 years 4x100m freestyle relay.
The quartet of Croker, Maliauskaite, Cookson and Rummery turned in a fine performance to better the time they set at Regional Championships, finishing in 4.05.12mins.
The girls finished in 23rd place, higher than they were seeded, and also finished ahead of all the other East Midlands teams.
Head Coach Keith Haynes said: “Overall, the week has been a valuable experience for all the girls.
“For all four of them it is their first experience of national level competition and they have handled the environment very well.
“This year has very much been a stepping stone to bigger and better things next season and we are going back to the pool to work on improving lots of elements in their swimming.”
