South Lakes finest descend on Ponds Forge, Sheffield (From The Westmorland Gazette)

South Lakes finest descend on Ponds Forge, Sheffield

6:00pm Tuesday 28th August 2012 in Sport By Scott Kirk, Reporter

FIVE swimmers who qualified for this year’s British National Youth Championships attended a prestigious event in the National Pool at Ponds Forge, Sheffield.

Now representing top clubs in the country, Joe Ellwood (City of Manchester/Ulverston), Victoria Hevey (Loughborough University/Ulverston), Georgia Denney (Plymouth Leander/Kendal), Charlotte Hill (Plymouth Leander/Barrow) and Austin Wilson (Ulverston) all gave good accounts of themselves.

Elwood in particular had an outstanding meet getting into two finals but was unfortunate to just miss out on the medals. The 100m backstroke heats saw him qualify comfortably for the semis where he powered his way into the 17/18years final with a 57.86, taking two seconds off his heat time.

The final proved to be a real powerhouse affair and despite getting a P.B., Elwood finished seventh with a time of 58.31.

He gave repeat performances in the 200m backstroke, strolling through the heats and semis into the final. He became involved in a tremendous tussle for a medal place and in a storming finish was just touched out to fourth.

He completed his efforts with a 67.78 in the 100m Butterfly event.

The 19/over 100m backstroke brought two great swims from Hevey. First, her effort in the heats brought her a 1.07.10 to take her into the final where she clocked 1.06.88 to take a brilliant fourth place.

Denney too was in sparkling form, scoring a personal best 27.24 to get into the final, and breaking her time again with a superb effort to carry her to ninth in 27.18.

Her effort in the 100m Freestyle heats took her into the semis where she set another P.B. of 58.89 but she just missed out on a place in the final.

Hill, most comfortable in distance events, swam in six events including the 200m backstroke, where she set a creditable heat time of 2:23.78, and the 400m freestyle, in which she just missed out on the final by a couple of seconds.

Wilson also had a fine swim in the 100m backstroke setting a highly satisfactory time of 1:01.77.