News / Emma Graham

Bochmann Sets Her Sights on Delhi 2010 as Leeds End The Year In Style

Posted on 9 September 2010

The ASA Nation­al Cham­pi­onships in Sun­der­land saw a first senior inter­na­tion­al qual­i­fi­ca­tion for Bochmann and a first senior medal for Kiritschenko.

Whilst most of the swim­mers arriv­ing in Sun­der­land were some­what weary after a long and demand­ing Youth Cham­pi­onships and found it very chal­leng­ing to deliv­er the same per­for­mances against some of the best senior swim­mers in the UK, the meet for oth­ers rep­re­sent­ed great opportunities.

The high­light for the team on day one was Anne Bochmann win­ning the senior 200m indi­vid­ual med­ley title in a new life­time best per­for­mance of 2:13.88 to qual­i­fy for the Com­mon­wealth Games and her first senior inter­na­tion­al meet. Kate Hutchin­son, who moved from Leeds to Lough­bor­ough last year, was sec­ond in 2:15.33 and World Open Water Cham­pi­on Keri Anne Payne was third in 2:15.38 secs.

Avril Kir­itschenko con­tin­ued her great form when she qual­i­fied sec­ond going into the final of the 50m breast­stroke and raced to anoth­er life­time best per­for­mance and club record of 32.44 to secure the sil­ver medal; her first at a senior nation­al lev­el. Lat­er in the week Avril went on to fin­ish 4^th in the 100m breast­stroke in anoth­er LTB per­for­mance of 1:11.16 miss­ing a medal by less than 5/​10th of a sec­ond to fin­ish off a very suc­cess­ful season.

Matthew Alli­son, who has been with the pro­gramme since com­ing to uni­ver­si­ty last Sep­tem­ber cruised to the final in the Men’s 400m indi­vid­ual med­ley in what is his first Senior Nation­al Cham­pi­onships since mov­ing from the youth ranks last sea­son. In the final Matthew fin­ished a cred­itable 4^th place with a life­time best per­for­mance of 4:24.7.

Emma Gra­ham post­ed a life­time best in the Wom­ens 50m freestyle final after qual­i­fy­ing in the morn­ing heats in 10^th posi­tion. She suc­ceed­ed in mov­ing up to 5^th place from the out­side lane in a time of 26.53 and less than 2/​10th of a sec­ond from a podi­um place. Both Emma and Danielle Hall-Jack­son fin­ished top 8 in the fastest heat of the Wom­ens 800m freestyle with Danielle fin­ish­ing 5^th mar­gin­al­ly out­side her best time set at the recent Youth Cham­pi­onships and a good result for her first senior final.

In the Wom­ens 400m freestyle, Anne Bochmann lined up with Olympic medal­list and for­mer world record hold­er Joanne Jack­son and was deter­mined to take her on. The expec­ta­tion of a fast first 200m did not mate­ri­alise and whilst Anne matched Joanne stroke for stroke until 300m her strength and matu­ri­ty over the last 100m was too much for Anne who nonethe­less secured her sec­ond medal of the cham­pi­onships. Only some 15 min­utes lat­er Anne was back in the pool for the 400m indi­vid­ual med­ley final where she had to set­tle for sil­ver once again behind Stephanie Proud albeit with anoth­er life­time best per­for­mance of 4:44.67 This topped off a great sea­son for Anne cul­mi­nat­ing in her Com­mon­wealth Games selec­tion in the 200 IM, 200m but­ter­fly and 400m freestyle.

It was anoth­er great team effort from a young team.

Youth Girls Crowned Best in the Land

Posted on 6 August 2009

Con­grat­u­la­tions to our Girls Youth Team who picked up the Top Girl’s Club award at the British Gas ASA Nation­al Youth Cham­pi­onships in Sheffield. 

Bochmann and Graham Strike Gold on Penultimate Day

Posted on 13 July 2009

Con­grat­u­la­tions to Anne Bochmann and Emma Gra­ham on win­ning gold medals in the 4 x 200m freestyle relay at the Euro­pean Junior Cham­pi­onships in Prague on Saturday.

Along with team mates, Eleanor Faulkn­er (Co Sheffield) and Danielle Stir­ratt (Co Cardiff), they also set a new Euro­pean Junior Record for the event. The team clocked 8:08.31 to break the record held by last years GB team by just over half a sec­ond. The team’s splits were as follows:

• STIR­RAT Danielle 2:02.97
• FAULKN­ER Eleanor 2:02.31
• GRA­HAM Emma 2:02.24
• BOCHMANN Anne 2:00.79

Spe­cial men­tion to a fan­tas­tic anchor leg by Anne, who took over in sec­ond place but soon over­hauled the team from Swe­den to win by over 2 sec­onds, and give Team GB its first of two gold medals at the meet.Well Done Girls!

British Age Group Record for Hungry Harrison

Posted on 19 March 2009

Sprint­er James Har­ri­son is the high­light of the day after a record-break­ing dis­play earns him a tick­et to Prague.

After miss­ing out on qual­i­fi­ca­tion in the 50m freestyle ear­li­er in the week, a deter­mined James Har­ri­son set a British Age Group Record of 51.59 in the heats of the 100m freestyle, to qual­i­fy in style to swim the 100m freestyle and the 4 x 100m freestyle relay at the Euro­pean Juniors.

Join­ing James in Prague will be Han­nah War­dle, who clocked a per­son­al best of 2:37.54 in her favourite event, the 200m breast­stroke, to qual­i­fy in 11^th for the semi-finals.

In the semi-final, Han­nah then improved her ear­li­er mark by over a sec­ond to set a new life­time best of 2:36.10 qual­i­fy­ing her in 3^rd place on the Euro­pean Junior Squad.

Com­plet­ing her quest to qual­i­fy for Euro­pean Juniors in all the freestyle events was Emma Gra­ham, as she swam a time of 58.37. Emma was also in action in the finals ses­sion, com­pet­ing in the final of the 800m freestyle where she fin­ished 8^th in a time of 8:53.23.

After an up-and-down 2008, Stephen Water­house came in to the 1500m freestyle today not know­ing what to expect. How­ev­er, any doubts proved unwar­rant­ed as he man­aged a 10 sec­ond improve­ment on his per­son­al best to clock 16:01.81.

Dip­ping under a minute for the first time in the 100m freestyle was Lucy Emer­son, who fin­ished strong­ly to clock 59.77.

Graham Adds 2 More Events to Her European Programme

Posted on 18 March 2009

Strong sec­ond and third days all round as Emma Gra­ham achieves Euro­pean Junior Qual­i­fi­ca­tion in two more events to take her total to four.

Day 2 of the British Gas Swim­ming Cham­pi­onships and Emma Gra­ham car­ried her good form into the 200m freestyle where she swam a per­son­al best time of 2:04.26. This earned her a third indi­vid­ual qual­i­fi­ca­tion for the Euro­pean Junior Championships.

Not con­tent with this, day 3 saw Emma make it 4 out of 4 as she qual­i­fied for the Euro­pean Juniors again, this time in the 800m freestyle. Her time of 8:47.82, a life­time best by near­ly 7 sec­onds, puts her in lane 1 for tomor­row’s final.

Danielle Hall-Jack­son also com­pet­ed in the 800m freestyle, dip­ping under 9 min­utes for the first time to touch home in 8:58.35, mak­ing her the fastest 1994-born swimmer.

back to day 2 and in her first of two swims this week, Han­nah War­dle was unlucky to miss out on qual­i­fi­ca­tion for the Euro­pean Junior Cham­pi­onships in the 100m breast­stroke. How­ev­er, Han­nah kept up the trend of per­son­al bests, clock­ing 1:13.15. Look out for Han­nah in the 200m on Thursday.

Also com­pet­ing in the 100m breast­stroke was Rebec­ca Davis. Rebec­ca, coached by Richard Deni­gan, touched home in 1:16.46 to take over a sec­ond off her pre­vi­ous best time.

Anoth­er swim­mer coached by Richard is 13 year old Lucy Emer­son, who had a busy cou­ple of days, nar­row­ly miss­ing her best times in the 200m and 800m freestyle to fin­ish in 2:08.68 and 9:16.86 respectively.