Beaton adds his name to list of national qualifiers

BEAU SEJOUR Barracudas member Matthew Allen returned from the Southern County Championships, which were held at Crystal Palace over two weekends, with valuable experience of competing in a 50m pool. Throughout the year, the 14-year-old has worked hard to achieve the qualifying times to compete at this level and it was essential that he attended three weekends to score highly under the British age group category formula.

Unfortunately, his selection to represent Elizabeth College in athletics on one of the weekends cost him valuable points.

But he finished a creditable 32nd from 86 competitors with a points tally of 1,718.

While Matthew was in action at the Southern Counties, fellow Barracudas member Alexander Beaton, now based at Millfield School, was busy competing at the Western Counties Championships, where he achieved significant success at a new level of competition.

With silver medals to his credit from performances in the 100 and 400m freestyle and the 100 and 200 butterfly events and a bronze in the 200m freestyle, he accumulated enough points to place a creditable fourth overall under the Bagcats system.

With several national qualifying times under his belt, Beaton, along with Thomas Hollingsworth, Jeremy Osborne and Joshua Lewis, can look forward to the challenge of competing at that level later in the year.