SwimmingSUDBURY and District Swimming Club hosted the second round of the ASA Winter league last weekend, welcoming teams from Hadleigh, Stowmarket, Beccles and Lowestoft to the Kingfisher Leisure Centre.

Swimming

SUDBURY and District Swimming Club hosted the second round of the ASA Winter league last weekend, welcoming teams from Hadleigh, Stowmarket, Beccles and Lowestoft to the Kingfisher Leisure Centre.

Local galas such as the Winter League always make for an exciting event, with some friendly local rivalry between many of the clubs.

Sudbury's Storms saw and impressive start to the gala winning 10 of the first 20 races and sitting in first place in front of Hadleigh at the halfway point. Hadleigh SC continued to pursue Sudbury to the end, but Storms managed to hold off the challenge finishing in first place with 206 points with Hadleigh SC finishing in second with 184 points.

The Storms' team celebrated a number of personal achievements at the gala, including personal bests from Alex Aldhouse, Cameron Bashir, Harriet Blake, Julia Carroll, Alex Deal, Rebecca Griffiths, Sam Jones, George Manning, Romy McIntosh, Kelly Murray, Benjamin Pentney and Harriet Wooler. Alex Deal also set a new club record in the 14/15 years 100m Butterfly smashing the current record in a new time of 1.11.44.

With the deadline for Suffolk County qualification only days away, swimmers from all of the clubs had their eye not only club points, but achieving those all important qualifying times. An elite squad of 15 Storms swimmers who will be competing at the Suffolk County Championships in March was added to by Claire Allen (100m Butterfly) and Alex Aldhouse (100m Freestyle) at the gala.

Storms Head Coach, Carl Cooper applauded the team, saying “we have a fantastic team that's going from strength to strength as the season develops. Each swimmer puts in a lot of hard work during training and it's always great when their hard effort is rewarded”.