Representative Honours for Sevenoaks Swimmers - 10-11-2009

Seven swimmers from Sevenoaks Swimming Club have gained team representative honours in the past 10 days.

Last weekend, Xander Alari-Williams and Natasha Hickey both travelled to Sheffield, along with team coach Julian Metcalf, to represent Kent County in the annual inter-counties competition.

The 38 counties of England, Scotland and Wales battled it out in the short-course (25m) competition. The Sevenoaks swimmers were on fine form for their county: Hickey swam an impressive 100m freestyle swim in a personal best time of 58.31 seconds while 16 year old Alari-Williams finished third in the under-18s 100m breaststroke. Both swimmers’ racing helped Kent remain firmly in Division One, with the county finishing in 14^{th place nationally.}

This weekend saw no less than six Sevenoaks Swimming Club swimmers compete for the English Schools’ Division XI team in the annual inter-divisional competition. Division XI selects its swimmers from Kent, Surrey and South East London and the competition was held over two days and this year hosted by Crystal Palace National Sports Centre.

James Manning and Xander Alari-Williams made half of the Division XI Senior Boys’ medley relay team that qualified through the heats on Friday for the finals on Saturday morning. Gabby Norris was also on fine form, recording personal best times in her 50m splits for the freestyle relays.

Individually, Alex Macauley competed in both relays and the individual 100m backstroke, while Leandre Stevens also achieved a new long course personal best time in the 100m butterfly. AJ Airey completed the Sevenoaks team, swimming 100m backstroke long course for the first time this season.

Racing over his preferred long course (50m) distance, Alari-Williams swam strongly in the heats of the Senior Boys’ 100m breaststroke, before going on to win gold in the final, finishing in 1 minute 05.83 seconds. This win also qualifies him to compete for English Schools against Wales, Ireland and Scotland in March 2010.

Sevenoaks Swimming Club’s coach Julian Metcalf, who also coaches on both teams, was delighted with his swimmers’ performances. ‘To have six swimmers from the local club representing a region as large as Division XI is fantastic,’ he commented. ‘You couldn’t have asked for more from them, while younger swimmers such as Alex had the opportunity to learn from more experienced members of the team.’