The first few months of the year usually means a lot of travelling for the City of Canterbury's top swimmers and their parents alike. Entry times for the National Age Group Championship and the Southern Counties Championships can only be achieved at certain designated galas. In the hunt for qualifying entry times for the top championships swimmers head far and wide to get to these licensed galas. Therefore last weekend a group of Canterbury's championship hopefuls headed North to Ponds Forge Sheffield for the Wickham and Gateshead Long Course Open Meet.

Click here to see results...

The swimmers produced a string of great results swimming against some of the top competitors in the country and six swimmers achieved long course national qualifying times. Holly Campbell (13) produced a great weekend work with an amazing series of swims to finish in the top seven in no less than seven events and gained five vital qualifying times in the 200m & 400m Freestyle, the 200m Individual Medley, and the 100m & 200m Backstroke.

Karl Botha achieved qualifying times winning the 14u 100m fly and coming forth in the 100m freestyle. He also came second in the 200m freestyle. Luke Smith (14) demonstrated his power over the longer events gaining qualifying times in the gruelling 400m Individual Medley, 200m Butterfly and 400m Freestyle events. Helen Robinson (13) swam exceptionally well to achieve 4 top 3 placings , and gained qualifying times in the 100m & 200m Freestyle and the 200m Butterfly.

Not to be left out her younger sister Caroline put on a stunning display to finish in the top 5 in five events and gain a qualifying time in the 200m breaststroke. Josh Maley (17) finished off a hard weekend's toil with six top ten finishes out of his seven events and was rewarded with a qualifying time in the 200m Individual Medley.
Special mention should also go to Jacob Gainey (12) who swam a draining nine events over the weekend and achieved nine top ten finishes.