January's City of Derby meet - held at Sheffield's Ponds Forge – is a mid-season highlight for the Evening Post-sponsored Reading Swimming Club and a big squad coached by Graeme Thomas and David Wittig hit good form in their latest outing at the country's top pool.
Reading placed seventh overall among many much bigger clubs. The top three slots went to heavily local authority-backed squads in Nottingham's Nova Centurion, Stockport Metro and Lancashire's elite umbrella group, Gallica, and Thomas's team finished one place ahead of the host club.
Individual high rankings included top breaststroker Leona Jones (17) placing joint third overall in her age group, Garry Dixon (15) joint fourth, Chris Boyce (12) fourth, Russel Korting (16) and Louisa Downs (15) both sixth and York Kloeppel (15) eighth.
In Reading's top swim of the meet, Kristina Paige (14) shattered the 100 fly national qualifying time (NQT) for her year by exactly three seconds in 1.05.36.
Paige made the 2005 national final in the same pool and the swim augurs well for a repeat in August. Coach Thomas highlighted a strong second length of the 50-metre pool, and the effort was all the more remarkable as illness has disrupted her season's training to date.
Dixon added prized NQTs to his programme in both the 200 and 400 freestyle (2.01.73 and 4.15.60) and was within 0.3 seconds of a third over 100 metres. In his first sub-57 second swim over the distance, he placed fifth in the 14/15 age group final in 56.61.
Alex Macarthur, making the final from the younger half of the large field, put in easily his top swim of the season and was within a whisker of an NQT in 57.68.
Jones also made a national time in placing second in the top age category in the 100m breaststroke in 1.16.99, as did Downs in her 200 fly, where she was runner up to the host club's Emma Smithurst in 2.26.86. Downs also collected fourth place in her 200 IM and Jones was fifth in hers.
York Kloeppel's 100m breaststroke swims in 25-metre pools were a highlight of Reading's autumn performances in the Speedo League, and he reproduced his form at the Olympic-length Sheffield venue. A PB of 1.12.95 placed him third in his final, beaten only by the best from Stockport and Nova Centurion in Russell Smith and Freddy Avenell, and the trio finished in the same order over 200 metres where Kloeppel recorded 2.39.75.
Louisa Herring was in great form over 400 metres in her first meet as a 17-year-old, her time of 4.45.29 a PB by some five seconds and 10 seconds faster than two recent outings over the distance. Younger sister Naomi, in her first major meet at this level, placed 10th in the 14/15 100m backstroke final in 1.14.72 and thus collected a valuable point for the team.
Louise Gillatt also put in a 400m free PB praised by the coaching team, her 4.46.69 improving on her time at Bath University's autumn meet.
Among the younger swimmers, Chris Boyce's highlight in a typically busy programme was a big 400m free PB of 4.48.54 which was beaten by only three 12-year-olds within the 12/13 category.
Adam Barrett's best performance saw him place sixth in the 12/13 200 butterfly, and Callum Willcox (12) slashed a huge 12 seconds off his 200 fly PB in a gutsy 2.49.30.
Frankie Wilkins stood out among the younger girls with PBs in all her ten swims across the weekend. The highlights were a 2.49.29 200m fly and a 2.43.65 200m backstroke.
Wilkins placed seventh in her year under the BAGCATS points system, with Rachael Mills also showing up well as 16th 12-year-old overall in a field of over 40.
--------------------------------