SWIMMERS MAKE THEIR MARK AT PARALYMPIC TRIALS
The first few days of competition at the Olympic/Paralympic Trials in Ponds Forge International Swimming Centre, Sheffield has seen a number of World Records and qualification times set by Welsh swimmers.
First World Record went to David Roberts (Llantwit Fadre – pictured left) in the 100m Freestyle in his S7 classification. A time of 60.50secs was posted in the morning heats session on Day 3 of the event.
David emulated this by breaking it again in the final in a time of 60.34 seconds.
Liz Johnson (Swansea) swam just outside her world record time and took the gold medal in the S6 category in the final in 1:41.20. Bronze was claimed by Nyree Lewis (Leominster, originally from Porth) finishing in 1:50.10.
The men’s event saw Sascha Kindred (Nyree’s partner)become British champion after a strong swim and achieving a time of 1:26.03 with total of 891 points in the S7 category. Silver was won by Gareth Duke (Cwmbran) in 1:33.02 , but had secured a faster time in the morning heats to post a qualifing time for Beijing.
The second world record was broken by 13 year-old Eleanor Simmonds (Swansea Performance Centre based swimmer, from Boldmere, England) in the women’s 400m Freestyle in the S6 category. The beginning of the race was dominated by Leominster’s Nyree Lewis and Simmonds came from behind to take the gold medal and a new world, European and British record in a time of 5:48.26..
“That felt really hard I didn’t know where I was at the end, I knew Nyree was close behind me so to beat her in a record time is really pleasing,” Simmonds said.
So far all 5 Welsh Performance Swimmers have set a qualification time to be put forward for the GB Team going to Beijing.
Rhiannon Henry broke the British Record in the S13 classification 100m freestyle.
In the final of the MD Womens 100 metre Backstroke Nyree Lewis smashed her previous World Record by nearly a second achieving a time of 1 minute 26 seconds
More news will follow soon
