News

Despite some excellent performances, it was a case of 'so near but yet so far' for Warrender swimmers on Day 4 of the British National Championships in Manchester. Keen to follow up the medley relay bronze medal of the girls team the day before, Billy Purnell, Kyle Goodfellow, Lewis Smith and Ewan Johnston put in a great effort throughout a very exciting men's 4 x 100 medley relay at the end of the morning finals session. Billy led off the backstroke leg in 58.13, Kyle swam 1:06.81 on the breaststroke leg, Lewis recorded 57.08 for the fly section and Ewan sprinted to 53.82 as the freestyle anchor. Alternating between 2nd and 3rd place throughout the first 350m, unfortunately Ewan could not hold off the very fast finishing Adam Brown from the Hatfield team and the boys were touched out for the bronze by just a few 100ths of a second in a very respectable 3:55.84.

Fourth place was also where Lewis ended up in the men's 200 IM final.  Spreading his energy evenly across all four strokes, Lewis came home in 2:05.12, battling with Stockport's Simon Birch down the final 50m but just missing out on the medals by 0.2 and his own best time by 0.03.  It was a busy morning for Lewis with a place in the final of the men's 200 butterfly also at stake from the semi-finals.  And although suffering from a light head cold, Lewis swam a solid 2:04.20, a fraction quicker than he went in the heats, but unfortunately it was only good enough for 9th place overall, making him first reserve for the final.

Sprint specialist Fiona Booth also had a busy day with three swims in the morning session.  In the semi-final of the women's 50 breaststroke Fiona posted a steady 33.64 to comfortably qualify for the final but she was unable to pick it up much when the race came around, finishing 5th overall in 33.52.  Fiona also lined up for the semi-finals of the women's 100 butterfly where a time of 1:03.84 ranked her 13th overall.

Billy Purnell progressed through the semi-finals of the men's 50 backstroke in a new personal best time of 27.33 and followed this up with 27.42 in the final for 7th place.  In the men's 200 breaststroke finals, Kyle Goodfellow was in action and although swimming a well paced race he was just outside his heat time ending up 14th in 2:22.34.

In junior finals, Ewan Johnston faced a tough battle with his peer group in the 200 IM.  Ewan was well in contention over the first three quarters of the race but couldn't repeat his trademark fast finish on the freestyle leg, touching the wall in 5th place in a time of 2:11.50.

Ewan was back in action for the afternoon heats of the men's 200 freestyle where he just missed out on a third junior final of the week when stopping the clock in 1:56.09, just half a second outside his best time set recently at the Celtic Nations meet in Ireland.  In other heat swims, Helen McRoberts swam an outstanding 200 IM of 2:24.80, knocking almost two seconds off her previous best to qualify in second place for the junior final on Saturday.  Katelyn Stewart (2:29.75) and Rosie Hood (2:29.43) did not progress from the heats.