September Update
20 Oct 2016
September started with a bang for Rushden Swimming Club
Northamptonshire County Short Course Championships, Saturday 18th September saw the annual Northamptonshire Amateur Swimming Association’s Sprint Championships take place at the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee pool in Rugby. Rushden Swimming Club (RSC) took a team of 40 to compete against some 300+ swimmers from the 6 other clubs in the County.
The event was started off in style with team relay events and the RSC team did not disappoint with the Girls Open Quartet of Amber Bales, Molly Britchford, Freya Cole & Ciara Usher winning the 4x50m Freestyle; resulting in the club’s first ever County Sprint title and narrowly missing out on the County record in the process!
Having set the bar high the rest of the team set several club records and many personal best times on route to a total of 17 medals: 3 Gold – Ciara Usher 14/15 x 3, 5 Silver - Henry Knight 10/11 Boys x 2, Olivia Snook 12/13 Girls x 1, Freya Cole 14/15 girls x 1 and Girls Open 4x50m Medley relay (Philipa Kabi, Freya Cole, Molly Britchford & Ciara Usher). 7 Bronze – Molly Chapman 10/11 Girls x 3, Molly Britchford Open Girls x 2, Brett Davies 14/15 boys x 1 and Boys Open 4x50m Medley relay (Brett Davies, Marcus Eaton, Charlie Savage & Nathan Jones).
Sunday 19th September saw Ciara Usher & Grace Devlin-Hogg chosen to represent the Northamptonshire Swimming team at the Junior Inter-County Gala held at Luton’s Inspire pool. The gala pitted Northamptonshire against 7 other counties from around the region including Leicestershire, Bedfordshire & Norfolk. A high quality field saw some very tight racing with race wins very hard to attain. However the Rushden girls delivered some excellent results providing 2 of the County team’s 3 wins from their individual swims, helping the County to come 4th missing just 2 points away from 3rd.
15 swimmers from RSC travelled to Matlock on 24th September to take part in the 4th Matlock and District Swimming (MADs) Open Meet. With trophies for the top 3 places in each event, top overall male & female swimmer awards, prize money in the skins elimination race (50m races chosen at random, the slowest eliminated and 2 mins rest on each round) with Regional Championship qualifying times to achieve, there was much for the team to aim for.
The afternoon swims continued much like the morning, with Ciara Usher, Molly Britchford & Hannah Hawkins all qualifying for the elimination race and a further 13 medals were won (7 gold 4 silver 2 bronze). Not to be out done by the girls Travis Boddington, Callum Protty-Gibbs & Jack Chapman achieved 123 in the men’s 200 Freestyle and Kevin Boddington set another club record in the 50m butterfly. The afternoon sessions were finished off with the girls’ Skins which saw Molly & Hannah put in strong opposition but Ciara battled through to win first prize. Ciara’s efforts in the Skins, coupled with 4 Gold’s and 1 Silver through the day saw her awarded the meet’s Top Girl Award.
The first event saw RSC achieve qualification for the men’s elimination race by Marcus Eaton where he later came 5th. Before the morning was finished 15 medals had been won (6 gold 5 silver 4 bronze). Freya Cole, Amber Bales & Hannah Hawkins achieved the first 123 of the day in the 50m Breaststroke and Kevin Boddington 53, set a new club record for the over 25s.
Head Coach Chris Mayell said "September has been a fantastic start to our swimming season with 4 County Championship gold medals and an historic relay victory amongst many fantastic achievements; it shows the fantastic strength we have for a small club”.