SWIMMERS in Worcester remain on the crest of a wave in 2015 as they produced an excellent performance on Sunday.
Having already retained both their Winter League and PGL League titles this year, the swimmers made it a hat-trick of victories by winning the prestigious County Relay Championships for a second consecutive year.
A total of 187 points were amassed by the Worcester teams to edge out local rivals Stourbridge and finish well clear of all the other clubs despite a couple of rare disqualifications.
In the 9/10 age group, medals were a little hard to come by with the girls’ teams of Aimee Monks, Grace Rhoden, Lucy Wadley, Ciara Mahanta and Maisie Lyons narrowly missing out, finishing fourth in both the freestyle and medley races.
But Henry Halford, Milo Reed, Michael Agoston and Jack Sweeney managed to salvage bronze medals after a battling display.
The 11/12s competition was fierce with county best times being recorded in both the heats and finals.
In the girls, Jenny Gearey, Leyla Tayar, Josie Armstrong and Olivia Fletcher were denied by the powerful Stourbridge quartet, while in the boys, Matthew Richards, Isaac Shepherd, George Glover and Louis Doyle shared the spoils with Pershore, securing one gold and one silver medal apiece.
In the 13/14 section, the girls were in fine form with Charlotte Hall, Ellie McGinnes, Yasemin Tayar and Emily Stancer finishing second and third in the medley and freestyle relays respectively.
But an inexperienced boys team of Kai Gooden-Morris, Harvey Lloyd, Sean Mahan and Aaron Cook missed out on the medals. However, their fourth place finish in the freestyle relay proved invaluable in the overall team competition.
In the 15/16 age group, Worcester dominated as the teams of Sophie Monks, Caitlin Adair, Lucy Clayton and Samantha Gearey plus Ben Holmes, William Hadley, Sam Hall, Oscar van Vuren and Matthew Redfern finished a long way ahead of all their rivals to win a brace of gold medals each.
Worcester seemed unstoppable as all but a disqualification in the ladies’ freestyle relay would have made it another clean sweep in the 17-24 age group.
Eloise van Vuren, Sophie Groves, Lizzie Bentley and Emma Lovesey plus Anthony Redfern, Luke McCluskey, Mike Adair and James Allen all demonstrated their class.
However, huge credit should also go the club’s Masters swimmers.
In the twelve Masters events, Worcester racked up eight medals – six gold and two silver – as every single Master won at least one medal.