BEST Swimmers Medal In Swansea

Wigan BEST swimmers have also been in action at Welsh ASA National Swimming Championships in Swansea over past week, and continuing the excellent results for the club.

Leading the way was 14 year old Matthew Silvester who competed in 7 events. Opening his account of swims in the boys 100m butterfly pushing his way into the final with an excellent pb of 1:06.81, in the final he pushed for the medals all the way reducing his time by a further 2.26 seconds to take the first bronze medal for Wigan BEST in a time of 1:05.34. Event 16 saw the Mathew raise the bar event further with a fantastic swim in the 1500m Freestyle reducing his personal best by 27.17 seconds take the gold medal. Next in his hectic programme was the boys 100m freestyle were he again produced his best making the final, before the final though he had swam the 200m medley. Coming back for the evening finals he powered his way to two more personal best times finishing just outside the medals in fourth in the 100m freestyle 59.30 then took 6^th in medley event in a 3 second personal best 2:29.36.

Event 67 and Matthew was back in action and medalled again taking a bronze in 6.91 second lift-time best 4:26.55 in the shorter 200m event took another bronze again another life best of 2:07.37. Finishing in what was definitely a tough week of competition Mathew took the bronze in the boys 200m butterfly in a fantastic 2:25.20 reducing his personal best by 6 seconds.

12 year-old Imogen Bailey showed her fantastic improvement over this season by making the final in her first event the girls 200m Backstroke finishing in 8 place.  Going on then into the 200m freestyle Imogen powered her way to 2.48 second personal best time. Imogen then added another medal to the Wigan BEST haul a superb silver in the girls 200m Butterfly finishing in a 2.78 second best time and a well deserved silver medal to her collection..

13 year-old Greta Hampson powered her way back to form with some excellent swimming over the week finishing 5^th in the girls 800m freestyle. In the 200m Medley Greta made a fantastic 1.96 second improvement to finish 5^th in 2:39.84. In the longer 400m event a 4 second life-time best for Greta gave her the silver medal. A short rest then back to the pool for the final of the 200m Individual Medley and upping her game Greta took a further 4 seconds from her best time and took 4^th place just outside the medals. The 400m Freestyle saw Greta finish in 3^rd place and another bronze to the clubs collection. In the same session 8^th place came to Greta in the girls 200m Backstroke with a fantastic 5^th in the 200m Freestyle. Her final event saw Greta compete in her favoured 200m Butterfly were she powered her to the final 2:32.93. In the final another life-time best of 3seconds ensured that the Gold medal came the Wigan girls way.

Another Wigan BEST swimmer who had an hectic week was 15 year-old Jess Sloan competing 12 times she came away 3 medals. The first of which came in the girls 50m Freestyle were Jess fought hard all the way just being touched out to finish in 28.20 and a silver medal. In the 100m event Jess went into the final as third fastest and new she was going to have race hard to get into the places.  Turning in 29.31 and finished strong with a 30.90 back end giving her a lift-time best of 1:00.21 for the 100m and her second silver medal. In the 50m backstroke Jess produced another personal best to take 6^th place. Following a comfortable heat swim in the 200m Freestyle Jess powered her way to a 2.58 second improvement and her 3^rd silver medal of the week.