Youngsters get parents screaming with thrilling racing

TENDER age was no barrier to exciting racing as 85 members of the Guernsey Swimming Club competed in the Junior Gala. Spectators witnessed some very close finishes and thrilling swimming from the youngsters aged between five and nine.

In the youngest age group, five and under, many parents were in awe as the swimmers competed over 25m in freestyle and backstroke. There were two wins apiece for Georgina Tapp and Lewis Winberg.

The six-year-olds swam three disciplines: backstroke, freestyle and breaststroke. The girls' events were evenly matched, with Shannon Gavey winning the freestyle and the backstroke and Katie Marquand taking the breaststroke.

With Marquand finishing fourth in the freestyle and backstroke, she gained enough points to tie with Gavey for the girls' overall trophy in this age group.

The winner of the overall boys' trophy was Louis Falla, who won both the freestyle and the backstroke. Callum Penney picked up the silver medal in both those events, with Ben Dumont taking bronze in the freestyle and Connor Bayes bronze in the backstroke.

The seven-year-old girls' group was one of the most evenly shared. Emily Lowe won the 25m backstroke, Leah Winberg the 25m freestyle and Courtney Chapman the 25m breaststroke.

The backstroke turned out to be the closest-fought match of the meet, with these three girls and India Lanyon all touching within a second of each other.

The overall winner was Chapman who, along with her win in the breaststroke, won silver in the other two events.

The seven-year boys' was also closely contended.

In the backstroke, Alexander Batiste won in 31.07sec., just out-touching George Staples in 31.35.

Batiste was more convincing in the 25m freestyle, in which he was a clear three seconds ahead of the silver medallist, Louis Buesnoz.

The breaststroke result was the reverse of the backstroke: Staples touched first, two seconds ahead of Batiste.

However, Batiste had done enough to secure the trophy in this age group.

The eight-year boys group saw four wins out of four and the overall trophy for Reece Carre. He led from start to finish in all his races and might have had a close fight with Marco Petralia had they been in the same heat in the 50m freestyle.

Petralia won his heat by almost half-a-length but had to settle for the silver medal.

In this age group, the fourth event was the 25m butterfly, with all these swimmers competing in this event for the first time. Matthew Norman collected the silver behind Carre.

Heather Woodford won three out of four events in the eight-year girls' group. Alexandra Butt won the butterfly and with three silvers in the other strokes she secured enough points to win the best-girl trophy.

The oldest category, the nine-year-olds, saw Ellie Ogier seal the overall title with victory in the butterfly and backstroke.

Brodie Bayes won the 50m freestyle and Nicole Hewlett the 50m breaststroke. The latter was the closest of races: Bayes led down the first length and until the final few strokes when Hewlett came in to touch first in 52.22sec. to Bayes' 52.58.

Luke Winberg won four golds and with it the boys' age group overall trophy. He has already established himself as a possible star for the future; however, he was pushed all the way in the 25m butterfly in which Pierce Gregory and Alexander Penney battled it out with him.

Winberg touched in 20.91, Gregory got the silver in 21.61 and Penney the bronze in 21.91.

Penney also had a battle to secure the silver in the 50m breaststroke. The greatly-improved Harry Andrews paced him almost stroke for stroke until the final 10 metres and was good enough to win Andrews the bronze medal.