Suffolk ASA retained the ASA East Region Inter-County Swimming title they won last year by finishing top of the six counties again in the 2008 event held in Hatfield. Although individual performances were important to the result, it was Suffolk’s strength in the relay events that carried them through to overall victory. Suffolk won 10 relays to Hertfordshire’s six. Swimmers were only allowed to compete in two individual races (100m events), with some swimmers seizing the opportunity to record double wins.
In the girl’s 11-12 years age group, Rose Cross of Suffolk won the backstroke and freestyle events. In the same age group, Zara Bailey of Cambridgeshire won the breaststroke and Amelia Knowles of Essex won the butterfly. In the boy’s 11-12 years age group, Caleb Hughes of Bedfordshire won the backstroke and butterfly events, with Michael Andrews of Hertfordshire winning the breaststroke and Yaron Ash of Hertfordshire picking up victory in the freestyle. The girl’s 13-14 years events saw three victories for Suffolk swimmers – Alex Harrison won the breaststroke, Ellis Jackson won the butterfly and Charlotte Taylor won the backstroke. Yasmin Bithrey of Bedfordshire won the freestyle. It was a similar story in the boy’s 13-14 years with 3 Suffolk victories and one to Bedfordshire. Samuel Briggs of Beds won the backstroke race with Jack Hollis winning the butterfly and Aaron Lynch winning both the breaststroke and the freestyle.
The girl’s 15-16 years age group saw some extremely close finishes, none more so than in the breaststroke race which finished in a dead heat between Amy Swallow of Suffolk and Emma Warrington of Hertfordshire. Verity Goodey from Essex beat Sophie Chamberlain from Suffolk by 0.02 secs in the butterfly race and Rebecca Reader of Suffolk beat Sophie Drake of Essex by 0.09 secs in the backstroke. Reader also won the freestyle event. In the boy’s 15-16 years age group, David Godridge of Hertfordshire took both the butterfly and freestyle events with Adam Baker, also of Hertfordshire, winning the backstroke. Nicholas Thompson from Norfolk won the breaststroke. The girl’s 17 & over events saw another close finish in the freestyle as Rachael George from Hertfordshire finished 0.01 secs ahead of Victoria Cadge of Suffolk. George also won the butterfly event. Natasha Brown from Hertfordshire won the backstroke and Bernice Edgeworth of Hertfordshire won the breaststroke. The boy’s 17 & over age group had similar results as Hertfordshire swimmers took top spot in each stroke. John Sargent won the backstroke and butterfly races, Bobby Cave the breaststroke and Johnny Quinn the freestyle. Johnny had also won the men’s 200m IM earlier in the evening, with Ellis Jackson from Suffolk winning the women’s 200m IM.
The final points scores were:
Suffolk 244
Hertfordshire 218
Essex 167
Bedfordshire 145
Norfolk 142
Cambridgeshire 132
Click here for full results.
