At this year’s British Championships and Para-Swimming International Meet held at Tollcross, Dorset was represented by a small group of swimmers from Poole SC and Bournemouth Collegiate, together with four of our County referees. The quartet of British Champs swimmers – Senior Fiona Hardie and Juniors Jasmine Holmes, Harriet Perfect and Jacob Peters – all from Poole SC and a record number of qualifiers for the club, while Alice Tai of BCS was Dorset’s representative at the British Para-Swimming International Meet.
For the swimmers, as well as selection for the Olympic Team, the aim for the Juniors was to qualify for the European Junior Team going to Hungary later in the year. Both Harriet and Jacob qualified for European Junior Finals, with Harriet finishing fourth in 200m Backstroke with a time of 2:17.96 and Jacob finishing second (100m Butterfly) and (200m Butterfly) with times of 55.13 and 2:04.48 respectively, both of which are new Dorset County Records. Both Jasmine (200m Freestyle) and Fiona (100m Butterfly) also improved their national rankings.
At the Para-Swimming, Alice was equally successful finishing in third place in 100m Butterfly (1:10.69), fourth place 100m Backstroke (1:09.14) and in ninth/tenth place for 50m Freestyle (30.75) and 100m Freestyle (1:05.68) respectively.
From our officials, Jill Beard was selected to officiate at the British Championships, while Steve Meter (Weymouth), Sue Podger and Tracey Roberts (both West Dorset) officiated at the Para-Swimming event.