Five-year-olds get first taste of competition in 25m pool

OVER 80 junior members of the Guernsey Swimming Club competed in the Julius Baer Gala. Children as young as five swam over one length with the eight and nine-year-olds competing over two.

With the balcony and pool area busy with supporting parents and grandparents it was an exciting couple of hours of racing.

In the youngest age group, many of the swimmers were racing in the larger pool over 25 metres for the first time.

In the five-year-old girls, Lana Mason was an obvious winner.

In the 25m freestyle, she was 15 seconds ahead of silver medalist Katie Dodd while in the backstroke she enjoyed a 10-second victory margin over Charlotte McArdell.

With those two victories Mason won the five and under girls trophy with maximum points.

The boys' trophy in that age group went to the consistent Liam Wakeford.

He finished second in both the 25m backstroke and the 25m freestyle behind Louie Cochrane and Jonty Carnachan respectively in two close races.

Jade Ferbrache almost claimed a clean sweep of races in the six-year-old girls category, winning both the breastroke and the backstroke events.

However, she was denied three golds by Rebecca Le Huray in the freestyle. Le Huray won gold in 24.00 with Ferbrache second in 24.29, but the latter had enough points to claim the overall trophy.

Tom Sangan secured the trophy for the boys of this age group by claiming gold in the freestyle and silver in the backstroke. He was pipped to first place in the latter event by Lewis Winberg, who won in 30.54sec. to Sangan's 31.37.

Ben Le Tocq won silver in the freestyle and bronze in the backstroke.

In the seven-year-old girls, Shannon Gavey won golds in the backstroke and freestyle events and, along with silver in the breaststroke, she had enough points to win the age group trophy.

The category proved to be tightly contested with the medals shared around. Megan Graham won silver in the backstroke, Georgette Fletcher won silver in the freestyle and bronze medals in both the backstroke and breaststroke. Katie Marquand completed the medal winners by winning the bronze medal in the freestyle.

Callum Penney completed a clean sweep in the seven-year-old boys class - one of the larger categories with 10 boys competing for honours - winning the backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle and claiming the age group trophy.

Louis Falla won silver in both the backstroke and freestyle along with a bronze in the breaststroke. Silver medal in the breaststroke event went to James Lowe. Joseph Andrews completed the medal winners by winning two bronze medals in the backstroke and freestyle events.

In the eight-year-old girls Leah Winberg won three golds but was denied the clean sweep by a vastly improved India Lanyon who won the 50m backstroke.

Not content with that one medal, Lanyon also won silver in the freestyle and bronze in the butterfly.

Courtney Chapman and Winberg were involved in the closest race of the day over 50m breaststroke, even the swimmers did not know which one of them had touched first. The event was sorted by the electronic finishing pads, which recorded Winberg first in 55.29 and Chapman second in 55.33.

Emily Lowe added to her family medal haul, brother James had already won in the younger age group, by winning silver in the butterfly and bronze in the freestyle.

Eloise Willis, who won the bronze in the breaststroke, won the only other medalist in this age group.

The age group trophy went to Winberg.

Alexander Batiste was the winner of the eight-year-old boys' trophy winning three gold medals in the 50m freestyle, backstroke and butterfly.

Like Winberg he was denied a clean sweep, this time George Staples won gold in the 50m breaststroke, Batiste the silver and Christopher Nel the bronze. Staples also won silver in the freestyle, backstroke and butterfly. Nel won the bronze in the freestyle with Ben Sangan winning bronze in the backstroke.

In the top, nine-year-old age group, both overall trophies were shared.

Alexandra Butt and Heather Woodford were joint winners of the nine-year-old girls' trophy, winning two events each.

Butt won the 50m freestyle and 25m butterfly with Woodford winning the 50m backstroke and 50m breastroke.

Butt also won silver in the backstroke and bronze in the breaststroke. Woodford completed her set of medals with silver in the butterfly and bronze in the freestyle.

Megan Airley was another swimmer who showed great improvement winning silver in the freestyle and bronzes in the butterfly and backstroke. Lily Mahon stepped into the medals winning silver in the breaststroke.

The boys followed the trend set by the girls and the trophy was shared between Jay Mason and William Kaines.

Special mention must go to Marco Petralia whose demonstration of superb butterfly technique over one length gained a round of applause from the spectators.

Petralia won the butterfly with Kaines in silver and Mason in bronze. Petralia also won the 50m freestyle event in another close race. He was recorded as having swum in 39.53 to Mason's 39.68.

Reece Carre collected the bronze but was to swim his way to gold in the 50m breastroke where Kaines took silver and Petralia the bronze. There was less than a second separating those three swimmers.

In the backstroke Mason was first, Kaines second and Sebastian Golland claimed the bronze medal.