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Warrender's team of 15 swimmers has produced the club's best ever result at the British Youth Championships in Sheffield last week.  Incredibly, the superb performances were also the best ever team result by a Scottish club at this competition.  After five days of hard fought racing, the Warrender squad finished 2nd overall in the Top Club competition, with only Plymouth Leander ahead of them.

Andrew Haslett led the way with a hugely impressive display in the boys 17/18 years section.  Despite returning to training less than three months ago following a serious groin injury, Andrew returned a hat-trick of victories, his first ever at this level.  His first gold came in the 200 breaststroke where he took no less than six seconds off his previous best time to claim the title in 2:18.94.  He then produced a blistering last length in the 200 backstroke to come from behind and win the race on the last stroke iin 2:05.64, a two second career best.  And he made it triple gold by dominating the 400 IM, stopping the clock in 4:29.15.  As if this was not enoug, Andrew also landed the bronze medal in the 100 backstroke (58.86) and might have had a fifth medal had he not pulled out of the 200 IM to concentrate on the 200 backstroke.  His heat time in the 200 IM of 2:07.29 would have ranked him second had he done it in the final.

Not to be outdone, Ewan Johnston helped Warrender further dominate this age group.  Ewan was in amazing form throughout the meet, collecting a brace of gold medals and several other fast times.  Ewan earned his first ever British National gold medal in the 200 IM by knocking two seconds off his previous best time and claim the win by three seconds in 2:05.65.  He made it a double celebration later in the meet when winning the 100 butterfly in a highly impressive 55.68.  Demonstrating his versatility, Ewan just missed a medal in the 200 freestyle just being touched out into 4th place despite a lifetime best of 1:53.44.  Conflicts in the programme also meant Ewan had to withdraw from the finals of some events after setting strong medal ranked heat times in both the 200 backstroke and 200 butterfly events.

In the boys 15/16 years category, Craig Hamilton was Warrender's leading performer.  Competing in this meet and at the Sheffield pool for the very first time, Craig continued his rapid rise up the British rankings with several fantastic performances, including a hat-trick of individual medals.  Craig showed off his distance freestyle credentials with a silver medal in the 1500 freestyle (16:00.09), and a bronze medal brace in the 400m and 800m events in 4:00.96 and 8:17.69 respectively, all three were lifetime best swims.

Ross Woolley was the club's fourth individual medal winner, swimming superbly to collect his first ever medals at this level with silver in the 15/16 years 200 IM in 2:09.67 and backing this up with bronze in the 400 IM in 4:34.63.  Again, both were significant best times and show great promise for the future.  Callum Shaw demonstrated great progress following his move to Warrender a few months ago by reaching three individual finals.  Although he was disappointed to finish 10th in the 100 backstroke, 200 backstroke and 200 freestyle, his heat and semi-final times had all been very significant lifetime best swims.

Ross, Craig, Ewan, Callum and Andrew and were also valuable members of the boys relay teams which were twice among the medals at the meet.  Callum, Andrew, Ewan and Craig combined to race for the bronze medal in the 4x100 Medley Relay, while Callum, Craig, Ewan and Ross were silver medal winners in the 4x200 Freestyle Relay.  Relay medals at this meet do not come easy and these boys put in some incredible splits to achieve these results. 

In the female events, Jennifer Dobson and Helen McRoberts were both in good form.  Jennifer made three finals from her four events, including a superb 4th place finish in the girls 14/15 years 200 IM in a lifetime best of 2:23.50.  In the longer 400m IM distance, Jennifer set another personal best to place 5th in 5:05.12.  And Jennifer made it a hat-trick of finals with a 10th place result in the 100 backstroke in 1:08.44 (heat 1:07.13, PB).  In the older girls age group (16/17 years), Helen agonisingly missed out on a first British national medal when placing 4th in the 400 IM in a new best time of 5:01.37.  Helen also produced positive final swims in the 400 freestyle (5th in 4:27.03), 200 IM (8th in 2:26.18) and 800 freestyle (10th in 9:15.09).

Yasmin Khera showed that she has made the jump from Age to Youth swimming very well with a series of excellent swims.  Her best result came in the 14/15 years 100 freestyle where 59.63 placed her 7th overall.  She went on to add semi-final appearances in the 50 and 200m freestyle events as well as narrowly missing out on another semi-final in the 200 IM.  Junior National squad colleague Camille Brash was competing for the very first time at this event and did herself proud with an excellent swim of 1:07.46 that narrowly missed making the semi-finals.

Katelyn Stewart was pleased with her swim of 59.80 to qualify for the semi-final of the 16/17 years 100 freestyle, while Nicole Wilson ensured a consistent finish to an injury riddled season with a solid 1:00.60 in the same event.  In the girls relays, Yasmin teamed up with Helen, Katelyn Stewart and Nicole Wilson to claim a very creditable 4th place finish in the 4x200 freestyle as well as 7th place in the 4x100 freestyle event.

The Youth Championships also included some 'Open' multi-disability events, in which Warrender's Sean Fraser was in action.  Sean showed that he is heading very much in the right direction with the Paralympics on the horizon by producing gold medal winning performances in the 100 backstroke and 100 butterfly events, as well as claiming silver in the 400 freestyle.

Coach Laurel Bailey, who headed up the event for the club, commented, “There were some great performances produced from all the swimmers and the mix of experience within the squad helped.  Swimmers such as Craig Hamilton, Ross Woolley and Jennifer Dobson who are new to the meet, performed superbly and were supported by experienced swimmers such as Andrew Haslett and Ewan Johnston who led from the front.  Andrew in particular, swam exceptionally well following on from his recent return to the competition pool after injury.  Our strength and depth also showed in the relays where we made five finals and picked up some medals.  Overall we are absolutely delighted.”

Club Head Coach Ian Wright added, "this meet was a fantastic result for the club, and while we obviously set out to do well, the results have actually surpassed our initial expectaions.  The swimmers pulled together as a team unit extremely well and my thanks go out to Coaches Laurel Bailey and Hammy Smith for ensuring this happened and running the event so successfuly."