West Norfolk Swimming Club hosted their annual open meet this March. Held at Alive St James Swimming Pool, West Norfolk played host to teams from Boston, Dereham, Huntingdon, Thetford and the Deepings. While Thetford took away the top visiting club trophy, West Norfolk took top spots in the race for Top Boy and Top Girl swimmers. Rejus Mazeika (14) swam to victory in all 11 of his swims to clinch the Top Boy trophy whilst Polly Anderson (12) brought home the Top Girl award with 13 medal winning swims across
the weekend: 10 Gold, 1 Silver and 2 Bronze.
With swimmers taking part from all squad levels, West Norfolk was represented by 112 swimmers from as young as 10 through to a strong team from their growing Masters squad. The first day of swimming kicked off with the girls 200m Backstroke where West Norfolk dominated the 11 year age group, taking all medal winning positions, with Mabelle Chadderton taking Gold, Martha More the silver and Morgan Arthur the Bronze. The team repeated the same clean sweep in the 16 years and over age group too, with Erin Woodrow taking Gold, Esmie Kidman the Silver and Zoe Wilson the Bronze.
Valeria Soldatihhina and Elizabeth Litvinenko took home the Gold and Silver, respectively, for the 12 year olds and Polly Anderson and Nellie Chadderton repeated that in the 13 year age group. In the 14 years age group Madison Hicks took the Silver medal with Ruby Baxter coming in third to take the Bronze. Belle Ringwood swam to the Gold medal position for the 15 year olds with Ruby StewardBrown taking the Bronze.
In the same event for the boys West Norfolk dominated the 15 years age group, bringing home all three medals: Alexander Pattison swam to Gold, Theo Ryan the Silver and Thomas Elsdon the Bronze. Jack Baxter swam to victory in the 11 year age group, while Den Vojevoda took the Gold medal home in the 12 years age group. Harry Clarke claimed Silver for the 13 year olds and Adam Jackson and Toby Turner swam to Silver and Bronze respectively, in the 14 years. Tobias Oglesby and Nathan Yeaman took the top two spots for the 16 years and overs.
Those first two events set the scene for West Norfolk, with the club bringing home 325 top three medals and over 600 PBs across the weekend, with several new qualifying times being achieved for the upcoming regional championships. Following her Silver medal in the 200m Back, Elizabeth Litvinenko swam to another 11 medal winning positions, ending the weekend with 8 Golds and 4 Silvers. Jack Baxter also continued with a strong weekend of racing, also ending with 11 medals: 5 Gold, including a clean sweep of
the Backstroke events, 4 Silvers and 2 Bronze, while Martha More also saw a weekend of strong swims, ending with 10 medals: 7 Gold, 2 Silver and a Bronze.
Olivia Bradford (14) kicked off a successful weekend of swimming with a Gold in the girls 100m Freestyle, which she then added to with another 8 Golds, including the 50m and 200m for a Freestyle clean sweep, a Silver and a Bronze. Tobias Oglesby, in the 16 years and over age group also saw Gold, swimming to victory in all 8 of his swims across the weekend, taking the Gold medal position in all Freestyle and Backstroke distances! Alexander Pattison (15) also swept the board in all 8 of his swims, dominating the
Breaststroke and Butterfly distances. Millie Harris (16 & over), Milly Johnson (15) and Valeria Soldatihhina also swam to victory in all of their events. Harris took home 7 Golds across the weekend, while Johnson secured 6 and Soldatihhina, 5.
Thirteen year old Harry Clarke followed up his Backstroke Silver with a Gold in the 50m Breaststroke, his first of 6 Golds he earned across the weekend, coming home with 9 medals in total. Other Gold medals were secured by 10 year old Maya Marcinek who bought home 8 medals in total, 4 of them Gold, Belle Ringwood, 4, Den Vojevoda and Joshua Jones, 3 a piece, Andrej Taplin, Erin Woodrow, Esmie Kidman, Mabelle Chadderton, Madison Hicks, Morgan Arthur, Nikita Diadko, Sarah O’Brian bought home 2 each
while Arabella Bishop, Calleigh Welham-Smith, Ellie Kitt, Jamie Wilson, Joshua Norris, Noah Goodson, Ruby StewardBrown, Samuel Liddell, Theo Ryan and Thomas Baxter rounded off the Gold medal winning swims with 1 each.
Outside of the Golds, Ruby Baxter had a dominant weekend in the 14 years Girls category with 9 medal winning swims: 5 Silver and 4 Bronze, while Nellie Chadderton added 6 more medals to the Club’s tally with 5 Silver and 2 Bronze for the 13 years age group. Junro Cai (13) and Kirill Ivanenko (14) both secured 6 medals each while Alexandra Cerps (12), Callum New (15), Harriett Wells (12), Nathan Yeaman (16 & over) and Toby Turner (14) all brought home 5 each. Ashton Busby (15), Daisy Covell (15), Ella Dickens
(11), Georgia Stevenson (16 & over), Lexi Foster (13), Lily Nell (10), Pemberley Hornigold (16 & over), Race Elmer (12) and Thomas Elsdon (15) all added 3 medals each with Anwen Jones (11), Bay Smith (12), Cory Hill (15), Daisy Stimpson (16 & over), Emma Wilson (11) and Oscar Tunnicliffe (11) each winning 2.
The medal tally was rounded off by Adam Jackson (14), Charlotte Wells (10), David Roczniak (15), Eloise Collins (16 & over), Faith Turner (15), Florence Collison (15), Freddie Wakefield (13), Harvey Isle (16 & over), Joseph Cook (11), Milana Melinyte (13), Ophelia Bradney (12), Ruby Jackson (16 & over), Thomas Garnett (16 & over) and Wiktoria Marcinek (16 & over).
West Norfolk Swimming Club would like to thank all of the local businesses and families who sponsored the races across the weekend, with special mentions to PBM Group, who recently supported the purchase of new backstroke ledges for the swimmers, and the College of West Anglia, who along with an anonymous sponsor, funded a set of new anti-wave lane ropes that were debuted at this event.
