Winsford Swimming Club

Congratulations to all our swimmers who travelled to Sheffield for a fantastic three days of racing at the Derby Excel National Meet.  The weekend kicked off on Friday with the start of the 2026 National Qualification window. After a successful swim camp, we were all eager to compete.  There were so many highlights it’s hard to list them all but here are a few:

We began the meet with the 400m Freestyle. Hannah and Eris smashed their personal bests with incredible swims. Well done girls! Both continued to have a brilliant weekend. Next, Hattie and Charlotte shaved three seconds off their personal bests in the 200 Fly. Hattie secured a top 10 national ranking and a bronze medal.  Hen then beat her personal best and qualified for the London British Champs in April – a goal we’ve been working towards since January. Followed quickly by Gus who took 4 seconds off his personal best, also a bronze medal and a top 10 national ranking. It was an exciting start to the meet. Gus continued on to take chunks off all his events at the weekend and had a stand out performance.

We then faced the long 11-hour days. Ruby, Aston and Logan joined us in Sheffield for the first time and performed like pros. Logan particularly impressed with two back-to-back outside smokes, smashing the heat from lane 9 and gained more regional times. Ruby also made a huge personal best in the 200m Breaststroke, securing a top 20 national ranking. Aston PB’d all his events, demonstrating maturity and ambition and improving his regional times throughout the weekend. 

Club captain Molly kicked off her national campaign with a bang, smashing a new lifetime personal best on the 50 Back and matching her qualifying time from last year on the 100. This is fantastic news so early in the window. Giorgio also made a strong start to his quest for national qualification by securing enough para points over the weekend to get him to Summer champs. Winning three medals in the process. Well done George, let’s build on this momentum and aim for even more events.

Lily, Eleanor, Ava, Ed M, Jefferson, Serena and Holly B achieved lifetime personal bests - amazing job, absolute top swimming! While Emily, Lois and Carys all got their national hopes underway with some impressive racing. It was lovely to catch up with Eleanor and Carys and wave at Lewis as he passed by. It’s great to see you all swimming so well at university. Overall, it was a fantastic weekend. Really well done to everyone.

A huge thank you to Ali, Gemma R and Zoe for their amazing company and being such wonderful team managers. It was a truly heartfelt team bonding weekend filled with good chats and laughter. It was an honour to spend it with you all.

Thank you to Stuart and Anthony for officiating. What a shift you both put in! You worked 11-hour days and massively gave back to our sport. You both deserve a medal and you’re both a massive asset to our club. So thank you again.

Ali also deserves a huge thank you for processing all the entries, sorting withdrawals and handling the admin. We really appreciate it.

We’re now moving on to Manchester International in two weeks where 26 swimmers will take on the next challenge. I’m incredibly excited to see where we can go from here followed by Regionals. Please ensure training is at its absolute highest priority and effort levels remain consistent over the coming weeks.

Thanks!

Molly