15-16 SEASON
English National Competitors
Ella Thatcher-Plant, Will Slawson, Zara Leleux
Summer National Qualifiers 2016
Sam Neeld, Holly Townson, Will Slawson,   
Tess Sanders, Zara Leleux, Ella Thatcher-Plant
Welsh National Competitor
Tess Sanders
ASA NATIONAL SUMMER CHAMPIONSHIPS 2016
Wrekin College had five swimmers qualify for these championships. Unfortunately, only three could attend the event, due to Holly Townson being in Australia and poor Sam Neeld managed to break his arm two weeks earlier. 
However, we still had Will Slawson, Ella Thatcher-Plant and Zara Leleux swimming in ten events between them with at least one competing on each day of the five-day National event. All three swimmers performed outstandingly and qualified for all the finals apart from one and produced some fantastic swims with many personal best times. 
Will, who competed in the 18/over age group, had some tough finals but managed to PB in the 400/200IM and finished 5th and 8th respectively. In the 200Fly event his heat time was only 0.1 outside his PB and went into the final as the fastest but unfortunately, with a poor start he swam 0.6 slower and finished 5th. We were both a little disappointed as we both knew it was a missed opportunity in winning a medal.  
Ella, who already competed at the British Championship a week earlier had two events this week. In the 400IM and 400FC. In the IM she needed to swim a PB to reach the final and that was what she did by taking four seconds off. In the final she swam faster again and finished 6th. The 400FC, Ella swam her entry time in the heat and qualified as fourth fastest for the final. We knew she had a great chance to finish in the top three but we also knew many competitors swam faster in the finals. For anyone who was watching it was an exciting race to see, and with Ella swimming a 4 second PB helped her to win the Bronze medal.
Zara started off the week with the 200fc and on paper wasn’t expecting to qualify for the final but again like the others she swam a PB and qualified for the final. She was just 0.2 slower in the final and finished 9th. The next day was the 400FC event, Zara swam a 2sec PB and qualified as fourth fastest for the final. This final was straight after Ella’s 400fFC final and Zara had everyone on their feet again as off the last turn she was second, and with 25m left to go all the other swimmers were closing in on her, but Zara just about manged to hold them off and won the silver medal with another PB of 4secs. The next day was the 200fly, in the heats she was just outside her entry time which qualified her as tenth in the final. The final was definitely a lot tougher than she expected but she did swim faster with a time only 0.1 outside her PB and improved to 7th position. Last swim of a long week was the 800fc. Zara had a really good swim in her heat and again swam a PB and finished in an improved seeding of 7th. 

WELSH NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS
While I was at the ASA summer championships Tess Sanders was in Swansea competing at the Welsh Nationals. Tess qualified and competed in four events. Her first swim was the 400IM which I know she wasn’t happy with her time but she still managed to finish 5th. The next day was the 400FC and Tess bounced back from her earlier disappointment with a PB and a good 6th place. On her last day of competition, she had the 200IM and 800FC. In the IM heat Tess qualified for the final but unfortunately had to pull out. However, in the 800 she swam a PB and finished in Bronze position and only missed gold by 0.8 of a second. 
Qualifying for these championships is a hard thing to achieve, but to actually swim well on the day is even harder. All our swimmers did me, and the club proud and hopefully inspire others to follow their great achievements. 
 Coach-David Clarke

 BRITISH SUMMER CHAMPIONSHIPS 2016

Ella Thatcher-Plant has had an amazing year of swimming, going from strength to strength, with the pinnacle being qualifying in the 800m Freestyle at the British Summer Champs.  The week long competition has swimmers from across the country competing at Ponds Forge, Sheffield.  Ella had an amazing swim, with a five second personal best to add to her achievements and finished eleventh in the 13/14 age group with a time of 09:22.31. She now has several more swims to look forward to at the English National Summer Championships along with all our other National qualifiers.

Tess Sanders - Top girl 15 years age group
Zara Leleux - Top girl 14 years age group
Harriet Smith - Top girl 12 years age group
WOLVERHAMPTON OPEN MEET 16/17 JULY 2016

For most of our swimmers this was the last competition of the swimming calendar year and for some a race practice preparation weekend before the Nationals.

For all those who swam it was a good weekend of more Personal Best times and lots of medals won.

Great finish to the weekend with three of our swimmers winning Top Girl in their age group.  

WEST MIDLANDS AGE GROUP CHAMPIONSHIPS 2016  

 Huge well done to all our junior swimmers who competed at this years West Midland Age Groups.  It was a tough competition but everyone swam superbly, which showed in the number of Long Course personal best times that were achieved over the two full weekends of racing.  Ella Thatcher-Plant swam most of her events in the outside lanes of the top seeded heats, which was a tough place to be, but she showed how much she has mentally matured with her racing over the last six months by still swimming well.  It was the first Midlands for Eve Leleux, Harriet Smith, Anya Preece and Hannah Swift.  Eve's highlight of the meet was winning a superb silver in the 800 Free and swimming PB's in all her events.  Harriet was a reserve finalist five times before she actually made a final on her last swim of the two weekends and finished a fab 6th place in the 100 Free.  Anya had some bad luck in her 800 Free by having goggle and hat problems from the start of the race but still managed a PB and knows she can go faster, hopefully without any hat issues next time.  Hannah's first experience of the Midlands was competing in 200 Fly twice on her first day as she qualified for the final and finished 6th.  Making a return back to the Midlands after her last visit age 11 was Ella Townson.  Ella's best swim was in the 800 Free where she had a nail biting head to head battle with the lane next to her for first place in the heat.  Even though Ella was touched out she still managed a massive 17 second PB.  For full details see Results.

Eve Leleux, Hannah Swift, Ella Thatcher-Plant, Harriet Smith, Ella Townson, Anya Preece.

David Clarke - Youth Coach, Chris Cummings, Aron Preece, Sam Neeld, Holly Townson, Will Slawson, Tess Sanders, Jack Manning, Zara Leleux
 WEST MIDLANDS YOUTH CHAMPIONSHIPS 2016
Eight Wrekin swimmers qualified and competed at this years West Midlands Youth Championships held at Coventry. It was a full on weekend of racing with each day having two sessions of heats followed by a third session of finals.  This meant that some of our swimmers competed over a massive sixteen times throughout the whole weekend.  However, this did not stop them producing some excellent performances and results. Winning 14 Gold, 7 Silver and  5 Bronze, and a phenomenal 25 Long Course personal best times between them.  Close races were swam by Holly Townson in the 200IM, Sam Neeld in the 200 Breast and 200 Free and Zara Leleux in the 200Fly, all earning Gold places won by grit and determination in the last 50m of the race.  Also proving it doesn't matter which lane you swim in,  Will Slawson had the draw of lane 1 in the 200 Breast final, and took Gold with a great swim.  This was Tess Sanders first qualifying Midland time since age 11, with continuous hard work in training earned herself races in finals, swam LCPB's and won Bronze in the 200 Free.  Great swims from Aron Preece gained him some good LCPB's.  Jack Manning qualified for two finals despite having an arm injury. Chris Cummings qualified for his first ever Midlands, despite the lack of training due to injury and illness, was happy to compete even though it was also his 17th birthday. For full details see Results.
COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIPS 2016
Congratulations to all our swimmers who competed at County Championships 2016.  With two full weekends of swimming back to back completed with some great results and PB's.  We had 24 swimmers attend with 18 swimmers qualifying for Finals.  A medal haul of 6 gold, 33 silver and 35 bronze. 
With 15 West Midlands Qualifiers gaining a massive 96 qualifying times between them, all the hard work at training came to fruition. 
An extra Congratulations to our Overall Age Group Winners who were as follows:

10/11yrs - Amy Harland 2nd

12yrs - Harriet Smith 2nd
             Hannah Swift 3rd

15yrs - Zara Leleux 3rd

16/over -  Will Slawson 3rd

Coaches David and Rachel were really pleased with the overall perfomances of all the swimmers over the two full weekends of racing, its a credit to all the hard work the swimmers put into their hours of training each week.

WEST MIDLANDS TEAM COMPETE IN BELGIUM

Congratulations to Holly Townson who was selected to represent the West Midlands in the Flanders Speedo Cup in Antwerp, Belgium in January 2016.  This is a big international meet with many European countries sending their Olympic hopefuls.

SWIM CAMP 2015
Club members spent time in Torremolinos, Spain in April 2015 as they prepared for the regional Championships. The swimmers gained great experience training in a long course pool for more than twenty hours during their week away from home.  
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