On the weekend 30/31st of January, 8 different Hamilton Aquatics swimmers were racing in 3 different countries, here is how they got on….
Holland
Anouque Berghuis (13) competed in the Dutch National Championships, she took time off from school to compete against the best swimmers in the Netherlands in the north of Holland. Having qualified for 7 events, she managed to achieve 7 top 10 finishes, among fierce competition with some very impressive personal best swims. Out of those 7, she managed to win a bronze medal for the 400 Freestyle and a bronze medal for the 200 Butterfly. Anouque personifies what can be done with the correct commitment, travelling 5 times a week from Abu Dhabi, always on time and committed to the programme.
Malaysia
Kelly Devan (10) competed in Malaysia at the 46h Penang State Age Group Championships (PASA)
Kelly competed in 6 individual events over the three days with over 300 swimmers competing in this meet, coming from within Malaysia and Singapore.
Whilst it was her first big competition in her home country, Kelly still managed to come away with 3 Silver and 3 Bronze medals. She also managed to achieve 4 personal best times.
England
Alex Millington (11), Marcus Barker (12), Cody Duncan (16), Kevin Riazanov (16), Sam Gardner (15)and Frank Ryan (15) travelled to England for the Burns Open meet in Sheffield.
The Burns meet is a top level meet and is used by British Swimming as a preparation meet for major championships, all the top swimmers were on show. Alex achieved several personal best times and went on to winning a Bronze in the 50 Freestyle, Bronze in the 100 Backstroke, Silver in the 200 Backstroke and Gold medals in both the 100 and 400 Freestyle. Marcus won a Silver in the 50 Freestyle and Gold in the 400 Freestyle both in personal best times. The 4 older boys all managed to achieve at least one personal best time each, which is amazing now that the high performance racing suits have been taken away. In nearly all of the boys swims they managed to climb places from where their original time would have placed them, meaning other swimmers from England were suffering from the new non suit era.