News - Beckenham 2008-11

Maxwell Swimmers take top honours at Beckenham Meet

Last weekend (Nov 08) saw more than twenty Maxwell swimmers in action at Crook Log Leisure Centre in Bexley. It was the ‘Beckenham Rising Stars’ competition and gave the swimmers a needed chance of gaining qualifying times for the County Championships in March. Maxwell had swimmers from across the age range, with the youngest, Trudie Wheatley and Erin Alder (both 9), to the oldest, Sophie Elgar (15).

The day started with the 200m Freestyle. This was well subscribed as it’s one of the major events at Counties. The boys started off with Luke (11), and his brother Jake (12), Scales, Owain Spencer (10), Josh Turner, Dominic Minihan, Kenny Cliffe and Tom Elgar (all 13) taking part. Josh put up a really good performance to take the honours with 1st place, in a time of 2:16.32, but all the boys performed well and reached their goal times.
The girls were next and not to be outshone, really went all out to outdo the boys. And so they did with Emily Martin (11) taking gold in 2:28.58 and Sophia Cliffe (11) silver, 2:31.69. Caitlin Wheatley (11) was 4th, along with Lauren Jones (14). Megan Jones (10), Lauren’s sister and Sophie Elgar, who was swimming with a knee injury, also managed to reach their target times.

The next event was the Breaststroke where again Maxwell gave a good account, gaining gold’s with Cristina Matheson (12) in the 100m and 50m and Josh Turner in the 100m and Nicole Bignell (13) double silver, also in the 100m and 50m. Lauren Pitts (15) achieved bronze in the 50m along with Kenny Cliffe and Lauren Jones was 4th.
In the Butterfly the trophies kept coming. This time it was Caitlin Wheatley’s turn to score double gold in the 50m and 100m, just pipping Cristina Matheson, who got gold and silver. Lauren Jones and Emily Martin achieved a silver and Lauren Pitts bronze.

Backstroke saw Maxwell swimmers put up their best performance. In the girls 100m Maxwell had 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in the same age group. Gold went to Sophie Elgar, silver to Lauren Pitts and bronze Lauren Jones. Sophie also took gold in the 50m with Lauren Jones taking a second bronze also in the 50m. Emily Martin increased her tally of medals with gold in the 100m and bronze in the 50m. Sophia Cliffe also received a second silver in the 100m.
Rounding off the day was the Individual Medley, with all four strokes performed one after the other. Emily Martin finished off her all round performance with a final gold. This achievement also meant that with her scores achieved over the entire day of competition, she was crowned, overall Top Junior Girl.

Asked how he thought his group of swimmers had performed, Maxwell coach, Bill Elgar said” It’s been a long day but worth it. The goal was to come here and achieve qualifying times for Counties and give further experience to our younger swimmers, that target has been met by the majority, with some further work to do for a few. We’ve had a good day with medals across the board and Emily Martin taking Top Junior Girl was the icing on the cake.”