Zach Powell and Leo Woodrow enjoy successful national swim meets

Academy Swim Team BOS

15 year old Zach Powell and 12 year old Leo Woodrow continued their outstanding progress as they took part in the English and Welsh National Summer Championships over the last 5 days. For Zach this was a second appearance in a row at the English Summer National Meet having qualified for the 1500M Freestyle in 2022. This year he was back to compete in the 1500M and 200M Free events. After the Welsh National Meet in April was cancelled at the very last minute, Leo was finally able to take part in his first national meet, entering 9 events in total. Prior to 2022 the club had only ever had one National qualifier who won the first, and until this weekend, only national medal by an AST Burnham Swimmer.

Zach took to the pool first on Thursday at Ponds Forge in Sheffield in the 200M Freestyle event where he dropped his PB and went desperately close to making his first final, finishing 11th fastest and first reserve for the final. At the same time Leo had a very busy first day at the Welsh Nationals in Swansea, competing in the 200M Free, 100M Back and 400M IM. He qualified for the Free and Back finals and finished 6th overall in the 400M IM. Having dropped his PB's in the heats Leo went on to finish in a close 4th place in the 100M Back and 5th in the 200M Free finals.

On Friday Leo was in the 100M Free where he qualified 2nd fastest with a new PB time and went on to finish 2nd in the final, securing his first ever national medal and the first by an AST Swimmer since Callum Richards in August 2017. On Saturday Leo was back in the pool in the 50M Free where he again dropped his PB to qualify 3rd fastest in the heats and matched that in the final to win the Bronze.

Zach was also back in action on Saturday taking on the gruelling 1500M Freestyle event in Sheffield where he went in with a ranking of 10th and improved this by finishing 6th with an excellent new 14 second PB in the process, a result of the outstanding effort that he has made in training over the last year.

On Sunday Leo also took on a long distance event, finishing 4th in the 800M Free. He was not done there though as he qualified for the 200M Backstroke final and later in the day in the final went on to get a new PB and a third place finish. On the last day of the Welsh Meet on Monday Leo took on 2 more events, the 400M Free and the 50M Back. He again lowered his best time for both events finishing 3rd in the 400M Free and 3rd in the final of the 50M Back to round off a really successful few days and finish with 5 medals.

Reflecting on their acheivements Head Coach Sara Dykes said "Impressive stuff from our national duo over the last week, I am so proud of both of them, the committment that they make to training sessions and to helping other junior swimmers in the club. They can now take a well deserved break and get ready for the start of the new season in September. Thank you to their parents for transporting them around the country to swim meets and acting as Team Managers and Officials."

Videos

Zach - 200M Free (Lane 8)