News 2010 - British Champs

British Championships - Final Day
Craig competed in the 50 Freestyle Final tonight improving on his semi final time, swimming a time of 23.18 coming 4th overall. This was a closely fought race and Craig is really happy with the time. "It's the fastest I've been without a suit and it felt good, both Kev and I can see area's within the race that I need to work on and this is good when entering into the next training cycle in readiness for the National Championships in August".

Head Coach Kevin Brooks commented "This last week has been a postive week for Maxwell all round with Craig, Hannah and Lucy all performing PB's or season best times and achieving high final rankings". Well done to the 3 of you! Hopefully more swimmers within the club will aspire and achieve qualifying times for next year or future years.

British Championships - Day Five
Craig had the 50 Free today and made it through the heats and semi finals with ease which resulted in him qualifying for the final in 4th place. Craig has a lot more to give in tomorrow nights final and is hoping to get close, if not better his PB of 22.49. Today in the semi he hit a time of 23.21 with around 85% effort. However its going to take 100% effort (and more!) to ensure he reaches the top 3 in Saturday nights Final session, which promises to be another sell out at Ponds Forge. The very best of luck from Maxwell !

British Championships - Day Three & Four
Wednesday was an important day for Craig Gibbons and he lived up to expectations and delivered an impressive heat swim in the 100m Freestyle. Winning his heat in style he touched home in 50.53 - this placing him 3rd fastest into the evenings semi final.

In the semi final Craig was up against British SC Record holder Adam Brown, yet even though he went out in one of the slower 1st 50 splits (of this semi), his impressive "back end" came through, and again Gibbons touched home first in the first of two semi finals. Craig finished in a time of 50.19 which is a huge seasons best swim and "was comfortable and enjoyable" in Gibbons own words.

Also in this mornings session Lucy Chenery finished off her "British Championships" campaign with another good swim where she improved on her previous Long Course PB by some 3 seconds on the 100m Backstroke. Well Done Lucy!

Today (Thursday) saw Craig compete in the FINAL of the 100 Free .... Craig swam well and touched home in 5th place in a time of 50.20, just shy of his previous semi time. Craig went out faster in the first 50m but couldn't manage to hold of the tough competition of British Record holder Simon Burnett and other GB Internationals such as Adam Brown, Ross Davenport and Grant Turner.

Commonwealth Games selection and/or European Team selection isn't over yet as swims from the final selection meet in August will determine the final make up of the team when 5 swimmers are selected for the relay teams. Craig also has his 50m Free heat tomorrow! ... GOOD LUCK !!!

British Championships - Day Two
Today saw Hannah Askew competing in the 100 Freestyle. She competed well and came home in a time of 58.8 to place her 26th overall. However it was the evenings 50m Fly final which was the focus of the day. This event has only recently (in the last few months) become her more 'specialist' event and yesterday proved this as she qualified for her first ever British Championships Final - a great achievement! In the final Hannah fort through the nerves and came 9th in a time of 28.71 - Well Done Hannah!

For Craig Gibbons and Lucy Chenery it was a day of rest mixed wth a light training session in readiness for Wednesdays events. Additionally for Lucy it also meant that she could continue with her "Autograph" hunting .... getting as many Autographs as she could of the stars of British Swimming!

British Championships - Day One
Craig Gibbons, Hannah Askew and Lucy Chenery all had their first swims today at the British Championships. This event is the highest level "British" event that a swimmer can attend with only the best swimmers in the Country managing to make the qualifying standards. Due to this only a handful of South East Region clubs have swimmers at this event which is largely made up of university swimmers! Maxwell has one of the largest contingents of swimmers from the SE Region ... of 3 !

Maxwell's swimmers kicked off with the heats in the mornings session on Monday:

Craig Gibbons made the Semi Final for the Men's Open 50 Backstroke in a seasons best of 26.74. This paces him 5th into the final, however after long consideration Craig won't be swimming the final on Tuesday evening as he must rest and focus on his more important 100 Free the following day. It is this race along with the 50 Free that will hopefully book his place on the plane for the Commonwealth Games in India.

Hannah Askew came 10th in this morning's heats in the Women's Open 50m Fly in a PB time of 28.56. Later on in the Semi Final Hannah did a further PB of 28.45 to make it into the Final in Tuesdays Finals session. This is a fantastic achievement in reaching this final, her first British Championships Final.

Lucy Chenery swam a 6 second PB in the Women's Open Multi Disability 200 Freestyle heats this morning - in a time of 2:49.44. She then has the opportunity to swim in the finals session where she swam 'on' her new PB time coming 4th overall. This was a fantastic experience for Lucy who got to race in the same session as Great Britain Medallists Rebbecca Adlington, Jo Jackson, Fran Halsall, Liam Tancock and many more!!!