Records tumble as AST Burnham enjoy their best ever County Championships

Head Coach Sara Dykes put it succinctly after a record breaking weekend for the Academy Swim Team, saying that she was 'really proud' of the whole squad after the final weekend of the 2023 County Championships saw previous club records broken. Having started with the swim team's highest ever number of qualifiers and most number of relay teams entered, they have finished it with their most ever number of medals won (and of each colour), most number of PB's achieved, most number of finals reached, and biggest ever combined time drop. This is a fantastic achievement and testament to the many hours that have gone into training over the last 12 months by all of the Swim Team swimmers and their coaches. That effort and dedication has helped to push each other and the club to new heights.

Starting on Saturday morning Under 15 Zach Powell continued his excellent championships with a Silver in the Boys 400M IM before Under 16 Evie Vowles qualified for the Girls 200M Backstroke final where she went on to finish 5th in a new PB time. 11 Boys then took on the 50M Free where there were big PB's for Under 11's Killian Faubel and OT Magang, Under 12's Leo Woodrow and Harry Glanville, Under 13 Xander Powell, Under 14 Kobe Budd, and Under 15's TT Magang and Fin Fooks. Leo, Harry and Xander, along with Zach Powell and Under 17 Lewis Duggan qualified for their age group finals where they finished 2nd, 8th, 6th, 3rd and 7th respectively.

In the afternoon session and there was further success for the Under 16 Girls in the 400M IM with Macy Noad winning the Bronze medal and Evie Vowles finishing 4th. 9 Boys then took part in the 100M Free with new PB's following for Killian Faubel, Leo Woodrow, Harry Glanville, Xander Powell, Kobe Budd and TT Magang. Killian, Leo, and Xander, along with Under 15's Zach Powell and Lewis Hay, and Under 17 Lewis Duggan, qualified for their age group finals where Leo then also continued his outstanding championships with the silver medal and Zach again picked up another medal in 3rd. Killian went on to finish 8th, Xander 4th, Lewis Hay 8th and Lewis Duggan 5th to round off another excellent day for the Academy Team.

Sunday morning brought with it the toughest event of the championships, the 1500M Freestyle. AST Burnham had two Girls entrants in the gruelling event, Under 15 Evie Horsfall and Under 16 Macy Noad. They both produced an incredible effort with Evie winning the Bronze and Macy the Gold medal. Macy's time was also good enough to see her pick up the Senior Championship Silver Medal for the event as the 2nd fastest over 15 year old in the field.

Into the afternoon and final session of this year's County Championships and some tired looking swimmers pushed themselves on for one final effort. There was immediate success in the Boys 200M Back with all 4 entrants reaching their age group finals and hitting PB's in the process. Under 12's Leo Woodrow and Harry Glanville went on to finish 5th and 8th in their final before Under 13 Xander Powell completed his full set of Backstroke event Gold medals, winning his final with a dominant performance.

Older brother Zach Powell then followed up with a Bronze in the Under 15 final to reach a personal record of 9 medals at this year's championships and surpass his total from 2022. On top of this Zach also took home 5 Junior Championship medals that are awarded to the top 3 Under 15 swimmers in each event, winning Silver's for the 200M and 400M Free, 400M IM and Bronze's for the 50M Free and 200M IM. Matching Zach's medal total was Leo Woodrow, who also finished with 9 medals and Xander Powell with 6 to round off a consistently excellent few weekends for the three of them.

The final event for this year was the Boys 50M Fly and there were further PB's for Leo, Xander, Under 14 Jay Duggan, Under 15's Lewis Hay, TT Magang and Fin Fooks, and Under 17 Lewis Duggan. Leo Woodrow and Lewis Duggan qualified for their age group finals with Leo finishing 6th and Lewis rounding off a great championships with the Bronze medal in a very close finish.

From the final weekend there were 18 further finalists, taking this year's total to 38, and another total reduction in PB's of 98.19 seconds, taking the total for this year to 404.07 seconds. Overall the team took home 31 medals from this year's championships, breaking the record of 24 from 2022. 5 gold medals was also the most events ever won by Academy Swimmers (surpassing the previous best of 3), 13 Silver's beat last year's total of 12, and 13 Bronze medals was better than the previous record of 9. As Head Coach Sara said the whole team can be incredibly proud of their achievements.

2023 Medal Totals