Reading SC’s distance swimmers really took the eye in the longest events in the Berks and South Bucks championships in an evening session at Maidenhead.
Four trophies were up for grabs – the junior and senior championships in both 800 and 1500 freestyle – and the Evening Post-sponsored club brought home three, with two fresh qualifying times for the summer’s national championships, two repeat NQTs and numerous swims to Southern Counties standard.
Beyond that, the club’s coaching programme showed up very well just in terms of the numbers qualifying to swim at this level in such tough events.
The highlights came from Holly Tanner, Garry Dixon, Russel Korting, Alex Macarthur and Craig Frankum, all involved in races which showed a good distance heat can be every bit as exciting as a sprint.
Tanner was up against a fellow member of the Welsh ASA’s youth talent programme in Wycombe’s Jeni Howard. The pair have had many close finishes in events between 200 and 800 metres over the years and while the Reading girl was marginally the faster on paper, Howard had the edge in their last two meetings over this distance. Great swims by Wycombe’s Katie Ambridge and Windsor's Caroline Wroe to win the previous two heats added to the pressure.
Tanner established an arm’s length lead in the early stages, but couldn’t shake off her longer-reaching rival and at the 500m split the lead was down to just six hundredths. Tanner dug in and drew away in the last quarter, a four-second PB of 9:08.83 taking the gold by five seconds ahead of Ambridge, whose earlier effort just beat Howard to the silver as the trio took 1-2-3 in both junior and senior categories.
Emma Zadrozny placed seventh overall and Louisa Downs eighth, as Reading fielded 13 of the 40 girls across all age groups. Eight joined Tanner in swimming substantial PBs.
Louisa Herring was 10th in a 10-second best, with further PBs for Amy Kunicki (by 15 seconds), Leona Jones (23 seconds), Amy Thomas (six seconds), Louise Gillatt (13 seconds), Beth Ayerst (15 seconds), Kristina Paige (36 seconds) and the biggest gain of all by the youngest, Frankie Wilkins, who was almost a minute inside-entry. Wilkins swam stroke for stroke with Amersham’s Olivia Bailey and just touched out the Bucks swimmer in a great finish too close to call from the gallery.
The men’s 1500 was at least as exciting. Wycombe’s Alex Vine, 19, soon established a commanding lead as expected, but a battle developed behind him for the junior championship between Reading’s Garry Dixon and Russel Korting and Windsor's Tom Norgate. The lead changed hands several times before Dixon pulled away to take the junior trophy and overall silver in 16:25.31, also cutting Vine’s lead substantially. Norgate placed second junior and Korting third, with Korting making his second national qualifying time of the season in a tough age group in 16:32.19.
The event was a career landmark for Alex Macarthur, 13, who made his first ever national time in an earlier heat in 17:16.75 – a new PB by just under a minute. Macarthur had a great tussle with older teammate Craig Frankum one lane over, just 0.35 seconds separating the pair after the 60 lengths. Frankum cut his PB by some 33 seconds, as did York Kloeppel, while Sam Flory set a new PB by 29. Reading’s youngest entrant, Adam Barrett, entered on 20.09 and cut it by an astonishing 95 seconds.
The evening was also a landmark with first ever counties swims for many in the 4 x 25m 10-and-under medley and freestyle relays. Reading were represented by Annette Hopson, Eleanor Wood, Isobel Keenan and Emily Nichols for the girls, and Barnaby Kempster, Will Tyrrell, David Mills and James Bradley for the boys, with the top performance from the boys in placing fifth out of 14 teams in the freestyle.
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