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 11th 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 3rd 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 8th 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.